Volusia County Market Sees Affordable Housing Growth
After a two-year hiatus, developers are ready to once again start building large affordable housing projects in Volusia County.
One of the first out of the gate is Cape Morris Cove, an apartment rental complex that Atlantic Housing Partners of Winter Park is developing.
According to the Daytona Beach News-Journal, Atlantic Housing Partners is comprised of the same team that previously operated under the monikers CED Cos. of Maitland and Sandspur Development Corp.
The development company is responsible for developing several affordable housing projects in Volusia County, including Saxon Trace and Enterprise Cove, both in Orange City.
At Enterprise Cove, Atlantic Housing is selling condominiums priced from $149,900 - an affordable Florida mortgage sum. It has sold 74 of the 196 three-bedroom units.
The new project will be developed in phases.
The first phase, which has 92 units, will cost about $32 million. The units will be located on about 9.2 acres on the south side of Big Tree Road, southwest of the intersection of Big Tree and Old Kings roads.
Phase two will have a single-building that will house rental apartments for seniors on acreage near the apartments. CED also developed a combination affordable apartments/senior housing in DeLand called Hunter’s Creek.
W. Scott Culp, Atlantic Housing’s vice president, said Cape Morris Cove will be a mixed-income community featuring “workforce housing” and fair market value units.
“We feel there is a very, very strong need” in the area, Culp said in a recent telephone interview from his Winter Park office.
He noted that while income in the area rose 6 percent in recent years, the cost of real estate in the Volusia County housing market skyrocketed by 45 percent.
Ed Jasper, Volusia County community assistance director, echoed similar remarks in April.
“In the last couple of years, the prices of homes have escalated, but incomes have not,” Jasper said.
Cape Morris Cove will have 177 units when all construction is complete. No less than 70 percent of the housing will be leased to low- to moderate-income families.
Those families cannot earn more than 60 percent of the area median income of $49,900 as calculated by the Florida Housing Finance Corp.
That amounts to $21,120 for a one-person household and a maximum of $39,840 for a household with eight people.
“A lot of the work force have been priced out of the market,” Culp said, referring to those in such occupations as teachers, law enforcement and firefighting.
“What we are doing is trying to develop quality affordable housing,” he said.
To help achieve this, the Housing Finance Authority of Volusia County received approval from the Volusia County Council in April to issue $25.5 million in bonds. The bonds will be sold to investors, who will be repaid from the rent paid by the people living in the apartments.
At the same time, council members approved a $300,000 loan to The Gatehouse Group for construction of a multifamily apartment project in Ormond Beach. The Granada Estates apartments will include 120 units for very-low and low-income seniors at 765 W. Granada Blvd.
The developers of Cape Morris Cove also have applied for a $5 million state Apartment Incentive Loan from the Tallahassee-based Florida Housing Finance Corp.
Rents range from $508 for a one-bedroom to $767 for a four-bedroom for those under the federal government imposed guidelines.
Consumers that exceed those guidelines can expect to pay between $150 and $200 more in rent a month, Culp said, noting those prices reflect the cost if the development were open today.
“It will be adjusted every year as the median income for the area goes up,” he explained.
Lydia Gregg, spokeswoman for Mid-Florida Housing Partnership, wasn’t aware of the new developments but welcomed it.
Mid-Florida is one of two non-profit community housing organizations that build affordable housing for first-time home buyers and maintain rental properties for low-income residents.
“There is definitely a need for affordable rentals,” Gregg said. “Just because Hope VI is doing quite a bit of rentals doesn’t mean that is not a need,” she said.
Gregg was referring to the project that is underwriting construction at three of Daytona Beach’s oldest public housing complexes. One project is Lakeside Village, which will have 103 rental town houses on South Street at the site of the former Martin Luther King Jr. Apartments.
Another is the Villages at Halifax on West International Speedway Boulevard where Halifax Park once stood. The development will have 50 senior apartments and 21 rental town houses.
The other is Pine Haven on Mary McLeod Bethune Boulevard, where plans call for 136 rental town houses and 54 lots for future construction of single-family homes.
Gregg noted that the Hope VI project falls under the authority of the Housing Authority of Daytona Beach, which has much more stringent guidelines for tenants.
Most of its clientele are very-low income, she said. Then there are workers who are stuck between a rock and hard place.
They make too much money for the low-income rental or ownership programs, but not enough to pay market rate to rent or apply for a Florida mortgage loan.
Cape Morris Cove will offer some help to workers, similar to projects that came before it, such as Wedgewood, Charleston Place and Windy Pines. A random survey of those places found most were 95 percent occupied.
George Stiell, a spokesman for Hope VI, said the program will have 310 rentals units available. Of that number, roughly 46 percent will be set aside for public housing residents, those with incomes that are no higher than 30 percent of the median income.
The other 54 percent, Stiell said, will be available for residents whose income does not exceed 60 percent or the same work force housing population as targeted by Cape Morris Cove and other developments.
Gerald Chester, president of Central Florida Community Development, said the rash of apartment-to-condo conversions in the past couple of years left a hole in the area’s affordable-housing community.
Chester said his agency, the area’s other affordable-housing provider, will build about 20 new homes this year and rehab between 12 and 15.
“We advocate for rental properties because they are needed as well for people who are not prepared for homeownership,” he said.
“We definitely support rental housing for the work force and the very-low income, who are doing the best that they can.”
Another project in the area’s future is Howland Pines in Deltona. The developer, Picerne Affordable Development LLC, also has applied to the Florida Housing Finance Corp. for a loan.
Here’s hoping the future of affordable housing in East Central Florida remains bright and increasing quantities of lower- and middle-income seekers of Florida mortgages get to experience the American dream.
SOURCE: Daytona Beach News-Journal
