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Pursuing The American Dream

Jasmina Meyer/Highlands Today

Highlands County Habitat for Humanity Executive Director Michael Jacobson speaks about the new Ridgeview Neighborhood Community consisting of 100 townhouses in his office on Monday in Sebring. Jacobson said it has an "emphasis on maximizing green spaces and creating park like settings throughout the community." Jasmina

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By JIM KONKOLY

Highlands Today

Published: September 30, 2008

SEBRING - On Monday morning, Michael Jacobson, executive director of Highlands County Habitat for Humanity, showed the first architectural drawings for the 100 townhouses that will go up at Ridgeview, Habitat's newest and by far biggest home building project ever.

He spoke with the enthusiasm of a football coach who had finally found his "game changer," the emerging star player or turning-point play that wins a big game and vaults the team to a whole new level.

Jacobson, who says Habitat now can't come close to meeting the huge need for good-quality, affordable houses for working families in this county, thinks Ridgeview will be the proverbial "game changer" for his non-profit, volunteer-driven agency.

It will revolutionize the type of home that Habitat builds and, he said, dramatically increase the number of families it can help.

"Habitat for 36 years has been synonymous with single-family, simple design, wood-frame homes built on a 50-by-100 (foot) lot," he explained. "That's been our mantra for 36 years.

"This," he said, pointing toward several different designs for attractive two-story townhouses at Ridgeview, "is a major paradigm shift for Habitat, as we're now getting into community building."

Habitat traditionally has attacked the housing problem for working families one house at a time, building about 20 homes per year in neighborhoods dispersed throughout a community.

Ridgeview will become home to 100 families in two-story townhouses, and include parks and bike/hike trails, a community center and retail stores, too. It is a 20-acre subdivision that will be built on the east side of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, a few hundred yards south of Arbuckle Creek Road.

"Trying to attempt to solve the problem one or two or three houses at a time is never going to close the gap between the need and the supply (of good quality, affordable homes)," Jacobson said.

Habitat will continue to build individual single-family homes, he added, but will focus on large projects like Ridgeview with the goal of establishing real communities, not just individual homes scattered here and there.

The change starts with getting "some of the state's most notable architects" to design homes that are not only well built and energy efficient but also have an attractive "vibrant design," Jacobson said.

While the project will have a series of 25 units with four two-story townhouses attached side-by-side, there are eight different designs for the homes and there could be more.

"We are not going to stick with a 'one size fits all' plan," he said. Today, Jacobson is scheduled to meet with architectural and design students at South Florida Community College, who may design two homes at Ridgeview.

Every architect working on Ridgeview has been given the mission of designing homes that "incorporate the latest components of green building and economic and environmental sustainability," Jacobson said.

"That means," he explained, "reducing the cost of cooling and heating. The average energy cost (at a Ridgeview townhouse) will be 50 percent less than in a traditional stick built (wood frame) home."

Ridgeview residents will have a community center and a community association, as well as parks and playgrounds and a bike/hike/exercise trail, Jacobson said.

"We're going to maximize green space and create park-like settings throughout the community, so children have a safe place to kick a soccer ball or play baseball or just run around."

Putting retail businesses into a housing development is something Habitat has never done here, and Jacobson said it should make a big difference at Ridgeview.

"We're hoping," he said, "to get things like a convenience store, so people can walk to it instead of having to drive. We also hope to have a day-care center there, to make it convenient for parents. And we also might see a small branch bank.

"We're taking a holistic view to building a community, and that's totally new to Habitat."

Without Habitat taking over the project, Highlands County would have lost $2.5 million in funding for "workforce" housing from the state's Community Workforce Housing Innovative Pilot Program (CWHIP).

"I'd like to thank Habitat for stepping up," county Commissioner Barbara Stewart said two weeks ago, when it was announced that Habitat for Humanity was taking over the Ridgeview project.

National Development Foundation Inc., a non-profit housing developer headquartered outside of Orlando, had planned to build 68 single-family workforce homes at Ridgeview. That organization, though, failed in lining up private financing to go with the $2.5 million CWHIP grant.

The 100 townhouses planned now by Habitat will be built primarily with Habitat labor and will sell between $80,000 to $87,000, Jacobson said.

The combination of Habitat's volunteer building, the agency's sale of a home at zero profit, and the $25,000 per townhouse CWHIP funding will give Ridgeview homeowners an average monthly mortgage payment of $475, Jacobson said.

"And," he added with emphasis, "that includes the principal (mortgage), the taxes and insurance."

To obtain that deal, a buyer will need to make a $1,600 down payment and meet income guidelines.

CWHIP is available to individuals or families earning up to $52,400 per year for a family of four, which is 140 percent of the county's medium income. Eighty percent of the CHWIP funding must go to families with at least one person working in what the state calls an "essential occupation."

Essential occupations include teachers, city and county government workers, public safety workers, medical workers, and people working for the building trades or utilities. Twenty percent of the homes can go to people in any profession.

The Ridgeview project, endorsed in concept by the county commissioners, will need a rezoning and a comprehensive plan amendment, and Habitat must secure the private financing to compliment the county's CWHIP grant.

"We're hopeful that all the lights will be green by the end of this year or in January of next year," Jacobson said. If that happens, he said, "we can begin turning dirt almost immediately, in the first quarter of next year."

Completion of all 100 townhouses could take three years, possibly longer, Jacobson said.

"But," he added, "we could build 50 houses the first year and finish it in two years. One thing is sure. The need is there. There is a huge need out there."

Jim Konkoly can be reached at 863-386-5855 or e-mail jkonkoly@highlandstoday.com

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