Asheville leaders approve funding for 197 more housing units

ASHEVILLE, N.C. (WLOS) — On Tuesday night, Asheville City Council approved $4.6 million for five affordable rental and home ownership projects.

The projects would create 197 new housing units. Funds come from the city’s housing trust and are granted as low-interest loans in complicated funding mixes for developers to make affordable rental projects feasible.

SIX PROJECTS WOULD ADD 400 AFFORDABLE HOUSING UNITS TO BUNCOMBE COUNTY

The goal for projects is to keep rents around $1,000.

Asheville’s best-known nonprofit organization for affordable housing, Mountain Housing Opportunities, was expected to get its grant approved Tuesday and continue to move forward with a 60-unit four-story rental building in east Asheville off Tunnel Road.

The project called Star Point Apartments, is estimated to cost $16 million and will receive a total of $1.1 million from the housing trust fund. Council was expected to approve a final loan of $252,838 for Star Point. The city covered the land purchase loan of $850,000. The project will have 14 studios, 35 one-bedrooms and 11 two-bedrooms.

The largest project expected to get a $3.879 million loan was for a 126 unit rental complex in the works by Minneapolis-based Roers development company. Roers has secured millions in funding from the county as well for the $45.6 million project located near Brevard Road and Pine Lane in southeast Asheville.

“The Roers company is a very well-established company. They have a really good track record,” said Sasha Vrtuski, affordable housing officer for the City of Asheville.

Eddie Starz, lead developer with Roers, said the goal is to break ground next January and start renting units 18 months after that. The company recently opened a similar project in Texas called The Narrows. On-line pages lay out income levels to qualify, which is how Asheville applications will also work.

Another project requesting a city loan is hospitality houses, requesting $40,000 for two supportive units under 400 square feet as homeless transition units.

AFFORDABLE HOUSING PROJECT OF 69 UNITS APPROVED FOR NEW LEICESTER HIGHWAY

“People who are at risk of being homeless, or maybe coming out of a substance abuse program,” said Vrtuski. A home ownership project by Habitat for Humanity was expected to land a $146,000 loan to create lower payments for qualifying applicants who want to own a home.

“It reduces their mortgage and monthly payments and makes it affordable for them.”