Habitat Believes Homes Cheaper By The Dozen 12-Unit Complex Planned Near Liberty Park

Habitat for Humanity wants to build a new kind of environment for low-income homeowners.

The organization is asking the city to approve a planned unit development for a 12-home complex near Liberty Park on the South Side.

Until now, Habitat for Humanity has helped low-income residents achieve the dream of home ownership one or two dwellings at a time.

Andrew Worlock, city planner, said this is the first time Habitat has sought a complex of this magnitude.

The project calls for a dozen single-family homes to be arranged in pairs, similar to duplexes. The attached walls dividing each of the two-unit buildings would be constructed on the property line.

Construction costs can be reduced, and each dwelling would be sold as a separate parcel to the owner-occupants. The clustering of the buildings also creates more usable yard space.

Currently Habitat for Humanity owns the 1.4 acres of land on West Sixth between Magnolia and Pittsburg.

The organization needs city approval to replat the property and to allow a planned-unit development that would be called Liberty View PUD.

A hearing is scheduled before city Hearing Examiner Greg Smith at 6 p.m. March 31 in the City Council briefing room in the basement of City Hall.

The site currently is undeveloped and for years has been known as a neighborhood dumping ground. It is located near the point where the Ben Burr Trail heads southeast from Liberty Park.

At neighborhood meetings on the project last month, some area residents expressed concern about parking, stormwater, the increase in residential density and maintenance of the complex.

The director of Habitat for Humanity was unavailable for comment this week.

In a memo following the meeting, private engineer Frank Ide wrote to city officials that “Habitat’s experience so far has been that there is an enormous pride of ownership and the homeowners do an excellent job of maintaining their properties.”

Ide, of Taylor Engineering of Spokane, was hired by Habitat to design the project.

Because the complex is designed as a planned-unit development, the city allows the lots to be smaller than the 6,000-square-foot minimum for residential development. The regulations also permit smaller set-back distances from the edges of the buildings to the property lines.

The lots range in size from 3,200 square feet to 5,100 square feet.

Paved parking would be built at the east end of Sixth Avenue, which would have a dead-end at the complex, and along the dedicated alley between Fifth and Sixth. The alley would be paved, along with a short extension of Sixth Avenue.

, DataTimes