Cul-De-Back

SEATTLE, WASHINGTON - Just three years ago, development of a 22-unit subdivision on a cul-de-sac of vacant lots off Wolcott Avenue South in the Rainier Beach neighborhood of Seattle seemed good as gold. Mortgages seemed easier to get than a driver's license. Home values were rising ever skyward. Potential buyers were eager to sign on the dotted line, even for houses priced at a not-exactly-bargain $359,000.

But then the real estate boom went bust and, like almost every other place in the country, plans for Wolcott Avenue crashed. The lender foreclosed on the developer. Work stopped. Five homes had been built, but none sold. Two more were half-built. Foundations had been laid for some of the other 15.

Bad news in an area that had already seen more than its share. "A foreclosed house, a blighted apartment building or weed-strewn lot in an otherwise vibrant neighborhood," said HUD Northwest Regional Administrator Mary McBride, "can all too quickly change the quality of life for those who call it home."

"The last thing this community needs is more foreclosed homes, sitting empty," Homestead Community Land Trust executive director Sheldon Cooper told Aubrey Cohen of The Seattle Post Intelligencer.

Thanks to a $1.45 million loan from the City of Seattle's Affordable Housing Tax Levy approved by voters last year and Washington Housing Trust Fund and HUD's Neighborhood Stabilization Program, it looks like they won't stay empty for long.

The funding has enabled the non-profit Homestead Community Land Trust to acquire the development. The five homes already built are on the market and work has begun to finish the two half-built houses. Then Homestead will build and sell another four and, once that's done, the last four sometime in 2011. "We're transforming a community liability of vacant houses and vacant lots," Cooper told Cohen, "into an enduring community asset."

And unlike the original plans for the project, the Homestead units will most certainly be affordable, selling, reports The Post Intelligencer, "for as little as $190,000." That's because Homestead will continue "to hold title to the land under the homes," reported Cohen, "charging homeowners a small fee and keeping the homes affordable to future buyers by limiting resale price appreciation to 1.5 percent a year."

"We're always looking for ways to increase the city's affordable housing stock so people of all incomes can live in Seattle," added City Councilmember Nick Licata. "Homestead provides an innovative and successful model that ensures affordability for years to come."

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