The Stroubles Ridge Development

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The purpose of this project page is to provide information specifically related to the Town's affordable housing efforts.

Community Housing Partners (CHP) has over 45 years of experience developing healthy, affordable, and sustainable housing across the Southeastern US. For almost two decades, CHP has partnered with the Town to provide affordable homeownership opportunities by utilizing the Town’s Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) and HOME Investment Partnership (HOME) funds. Last year, CHP was awarded $1.2 million from the New River Valley HOME Consortium to support the development of affordable units as part of Stroubles Ridge Development.


The Stroubles Ridge Development

Community Housing Partners (CHP) plans to develop 45 residential lots with 41 single-family homes and 4 duplex buildings on 24 acres as part of Stroubles Ridge development on Merrimac Road. All of these homes will meet or exceed earth craft green building standards. This project will provide new housing targeted at first-time homebuyers earning less than 80% of Area Median Income (AMI); those having difficulty securing healthy and safe options in our traditional real estate market within the Town limits. 80% AMI equates to a 4-person household with an annual gross income of $63,000.


How would the Town Invest in this Project?

In 2021, this project received development approval in Montgomery County. Although the project already received an award of NRV HOME funding, in order to make this entire development affordable to 80% and below our AMI, Community Housing Partners needs to attract more capital to subsidize the cost to construct these units. The estimated subsidy gap per unit is between $110,000 and $170,000, depending on the % AMI of the household.

This year CHP requested and received a Boundary Line Adjustment, which will bring the property into the Town of Blacksburg. It also received a commitment of an additional $1 million dollars of the Town's CDBG funding to support this project. This will provide CHP with the necessary matching funds needed to access additional State HOME funding and New Market Tax Credits and to increase the number of affordable units provided as part of this development. If the development remained in the County, CHP would not have had access to this CDBG funding, which is only available in the Town. As a result, this project will help further the Town's priorities of providing more affordable homeownership opportunities within Town limits.

For more information about the approved CHP's Stroubles Ridge Boundary Line Adjustment request, click here.


Why this development?

CHP has a long track record of successful projects utilizing State and Federal funding sources along with private investment. Local examples of affordable homeownership projects that have led to sustained impact include the new construction of duplexes on Prospect St in Blacksburg in 2006, the homes on Cedar Hill Rd in Blacksburg in 2009, and a handful of more recent home rehab and conversion projects in the Bennett Hill and Progress St. neighborhoods. Each project includes HOME and/or CDBG funds that CHP successfully deployed to create these deed-restricted affordable homeownership units. However, this work has been slower and more piecemeal as Town staff worked with CHP to find and create opportunities in already established neighborhoods. While this kind of work is still needed, the opportunity to develop a large number of affordable homeownership units as part of one project in support of the Town’s housing goals and communicated citizen priorities is invaluable. Finding an affordable and larger tract of land with access to utilities is extremely difficult to find in the Town of Blacksburg, so this site presents a rare opportunity.

CHP is also willing to turn all the homes in the Stroubles Ridge development into Community Land Trust units and to manage the Community Land Trust for the benefit of the Town and Montgomery County if both parties can agree to provide ongoing financial support for Community Land Trust operations. Community Land Trusts have four main goals: 1) to provide affordable housing for low-income and moderate-income residents in the community, 2) to promote resident ownership of housing, 3) to keep housing affordable to future residents, and 4) to capture the value of public investment for long-term community benefit. Although many of the currently affordable homeownership units, developed using CDBG and HOME funds have been deed-restricted for 99 years, the home and the land are not permanently protected for the benefit of affordable housing. Although 99 years seems like a long time, when local, state, and federal funds of $150,000 on average are required for each home, it would be ideal if we could retain that investment to support our community’s housing affordability goals.

As opposed to a conventional home purchase, in a CLT home, the home is owned by the homeowner and the land underneath the house is owned by the CLT who leases it to homeowners via a 99-year, inheritable, renewable ground lease. The home is sold to the homeowner at below market value. CLTs allow individuals to own and build equity in homes that would otherwise be unaffordable. However, unlike conventional homeownership programs, CLTs also limit those individuals’ ability to make windfall profits when they sell their homes. That limitation allows the unit to be sold at an affordable price to its next owner. In this way, the CLT preserves the opportunity for low- and moderate-income families to build wealth from the unit in perpetuity.


Affordable Housing in the Town of Blacksburg

In the past year, Town staff carried out a three-part online public engagement process regarding housing affordability to better understand: 1) citizen priorities and concerns, 2) what housing types and densities would be acceptable to the community, and 3) what strategies the community would like the Town to pursue.

Town staff heard many concerns about the Town becoming more exclusive and less diverse, the need for a wider range of housing types to create housing for a wider range of incomes, and the desire for the Town to focus on housing for permanent (non-student) residents.

The survey results showed an interest in more affordable housing, especially for those that play vital roles in our community. Aside from post-secondary teachers, those occupying the top ten occupations in Blacksburg cannot afford to rent or own in Blacksburg, especially single-earner households. This includes young professionals, retail and service workers, pre-k and k-12 teachers, health care workers, police officers, administrative assistants, janitors and cleaners, repairmen, manufacturing or construction workers, among others.

As a major employment center in the New River Valley, the Town of Blacksburg is experiencing a high demand for housing. The supply of for-sale housing and the growth in incomes cannot keep pace with the demand and the increase in local home prices. With an average new construction single-family house price of $435,000 in 2019 and an average of fewer than 3 days on market, it is becoming increasingly difficult for first-time homebuyers to find and compete for homes within the Town of Blacksburg. This is resulting in increased commuter traffic and creating a more exclusive and less diverse community. Having an economically, culturally, and racially diverse community was frequently noted as important to the quality of life for all residents.

A majority of respondents also identified the need for a wider range of housing types in order to create housing for a wider range of incomes. More single-family homes on compact lots and townhomes that provide more affordable homeownership opportunities for our workforce were widely supported. This type of development is not being provided by the market due to a number of factors including the Town’s dated zoning that favors larger lot single-family development, the increased cost of materials, labor, and land, and the fact that student-oriented development has been more profitable for developers.

This project will serve these identified needs. More information about the survey is available here in the documents section.


What is affordable housing?

The federal government considers housing to be affordable if a household spends no more than 30% of its gross income on its housing costs, including utilities. Keeping housing costs below 30 percent of income is intended to ensure that households have enough money to pay for other non-discretionary costs; therefore, policymakers consider households who spend more than 30 percent of their income on housing costs to be housing cost-burdened. In Blacksburg, based on findings from the New River Valley Regional Housing Study, any households earning less than $88,000 will have difficulty finding affordable housing in Blacksburg based on this definition and would be considered cost-burdened.


How does the Town of Blacksburg Invest in Affordable Housing?

Blacksburg currently has access to two streams of public funding allocated at the federal level by HUD, which help us provide subsidies for local affordable housing developments. This is not sufficient to meet the affordable housing needs within our community. These existing funding streams include HOME and CDBG (Community Development Block Grant) funds. HOME funds can be used to finance a wide variety of affordable housing activities that generally fall into four categories: rehabilitation of owner-occupied housing; assistance to home buyers; acquisition, rehabilitation, or construction of rental housing; and tenant-based rental assistance. CDBG funds may be used for community development activities such as real estate acquisition, relocation, demolition, rehabilitation of housing. However, these funds can also be used for the construction of public facilities, improvements (such as water, sewer, and other utilities, street paving, and sidewalks), and support for a variety of public services. Both HOME and CDBG funds only support projects serving households earning 80% of Area Median Income or less and require a minimum of 30 years of guaranteed project affordability.


Questions?

Do you have a question or comment about the affordable housing goals of this project? Please register and submit them below. This website is specifically about affordable housing in Blacksburg and how it relates to the Stroubles Ridge Development project. Housing and Neighborhood staff will be responding to these questions.

If you have questions or comments related to the approved Boundary Line Adjustment request, please email Anne McClung at: amcclung@blacksburg.gov with the Planning and Building Department.

The purpose of this project page is to provide information specifically related to the Town's affordable housing efforts.

Community Housing Partners (CHP) has over 45 years of experience developing healthy, affordable, and sustainable housing across the Southeastern US. For almost two decades, CHP has partnered with the Town to provide affordable homeownership opportunities by utilizing the Town’s Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) and HOME Investment Partnership (HOME) funds. Last year, CHP was awarded $1.2 million from the New River Valley HOME Consortium to support the development of affordable units as part of Stroubles Ridge Development.


The Stroubles Ridge Development

Community Housing Partners (CHP) plans to develop 45 residential lots with 41 single-family homes and 4 duplex buildings on 24 acres as part of Stroubles Ridge development on Merrimac Road. All of these homes will meet or exceed earth craft green building standards. This project will provide new housing targeted at first-time homebuyers earning less than 80% of Area Median Income (AMI); those having difficulty securing healthy and safe options in our traditional real estate market within the Town limits. 80% AMI equates to a 4-person household with an annual gross income of $63,000.


How would the Town Invest in this Project?

In 2021, this project received development approval in Montgomery County. Although the project already received an award of NRV HOME funding, in order to make this entire development affordable to 80% and below our AMI, Community Housing Partners needs to attract more capital to subsidize the cost to construct these units. The estimated subsidy gap per unit is between $110,000 and $170,000, depending on the % AMI of the household.

This year CHP requested and received a Boundary Line Adjustment, which will bring the property into the Town of Blacksburg. It also received a commitment of an additional $1 million dollars of the Town's CDBG funding to support this project. This will provide CHP with the necessary matching funds needed to access additional State HOME funding and New Market Tax Credits and to increase the number of affordable units provided as part of this development. If the development remained in the County, CHP would not have had access to this CDBG funding, which is only available in the Town. As a result, this project will help further the Town's priorities of providing more affordable homeownership opportunities within Town limits.

For more information about the approved CHP's Stroubles Ridge Boundary Line Adjustment request, click here.


Why this development?

CHP has a long track record of successful projects utilizing State and Federal funding sources along with private investment. Local examples of affordable homeownership projects that have led to sustained impact include the new construction of duplexes on Prospect St in Blacksburg in 2006, the homes on Cedar Hill Rd in Blacksburg in 2009, and a handful of more recent home rehab and conversion projects in the Bennett Hill and Progress St. neighborhoods. Each project includes HOME and/or CDBG funds that CHP successfully deployed to create these deed-restricted affordable homeownership units. However, this work has been slower and more piecemeal as Town staff worked with CHP to find and create opportunities in already established neighborhoods. While this kind of work is still needed, the opportunity to develop a large number of affordable homeownership units as part of one project in support of the Town’s housing goals and communicated citizen priorities is invaluable. Finding an affordable and larger tract of land with access to utilities is extremely difficult to find in the Town of Blacksburg, so this site presents a rare opportunity.

CHP is also willing to turn all the homes in the Stroubles Ridge development into Community Land Trust units and to manage the Community Land Trust for the benefit of the Town and Montgomery County if both parties can agree to provide ongoing financial support for Community Land Trust operations. Community Land Trusts have four main goals: 1) to provide affordable housing for low-income and moderate-income residents in the community, 2) to promote resident ownership of housing, 3) to keep housing affordable to future residents, and 4) to capture the value of public investment for long-term community benefit. Although many of the currently affordable homeownership units, developed using CDBG and HOME funds have been deed-restricted for 99 years, the home and the land are not permanently protected for the benefit of affordable housing. Although 99 years seems like a long time, when local, state, and federal funds of $150,000 on average are required for each home, it would be ideal if we could retain that investment to support our community’s housing affordability goals.

As opposed to a conventional home purchase, in a CLT home, the home is owned by the homeowner and the land underneath the house is owned by the CLT who leases it to homeowners via a 99-year, inheritable, renewable ground lease. The home is sold to the homeowner at below market value. CLTs allow individuals to own and build equity in homes that would otherwise be unaffordable. However, unlike conventional homeownership programs, CLTs also limit those individuals’ ability to make windfall profits when they sell their homes. That limitation allows the unit to be sold at an affordable price to its next owner. In this way, the CLT preserves the opportunity for low- and moderate-income families to build wealth from the unit in perpetuity.


Affordable Housing in the Town of Blacksburg

In the past year, Town staff carried out a three-part online public engagement process regarding housing affordability to better understand: 1) citizen priorities and concerns, 2) what housing types and densities would be acceptable to the community, and 3) what strategies the community would like the Town to pursue.

Town staff heard many concerns about the Town becoming more exclusive and less diverse, the need for a wider range of housing types to create housing for a wider range of incomes, and the desire for the Town to focus on housing for permanent (non-student) residents.

The survey results showed an interest in more affordable housing, especially for those that play vital roles in our community. Aside from post-secondary teachers, those occupying the top ten occupations in Blacksburg cannot afford to rent or own in Blacksburg, especially single-earner households. This includes young professionals, retail and service workers, pre-k and k-12 teachers, health care workers, police officers, administrative assistants, janitors and cleaners, repairmen, manufacturing or construction workers, among others.

As a major employment center in the New River Valley, the Town of Blacksburg is experiencing a high demand for housing. The supply of for-sale housing and the growth in incomes cannot keep pace with the demand and the increase in local home prices. With an average new construction single-family house price of $435,000 in 2019 and an average of fewer than 3 days on market, it is becoming increasingly difficult for first-time homebuyers to find and compete for homes within the Town of Blacksburg. This is resulting in increased commuter traffic and creating a more exclusive and less diverse community. Having an economically, culturally, and racially diverse community was frequently noted as important to the quality of life for all residents.

A majority of respondents also identified the need for a wider range of housing types in order to create housing for a wider range of incomes. More single-family homes on compact lots and townhomes that provide more affordable homeownership opportunities for our workforce were widely supported. This type of development is not being provided by the market due to a number of factors including the Town’s dated zoning that favors larger lot single-family development, the increased cost of materials, labor, and land, and the fact that student-oriented development has been more profitable for developers.

This project will serve these identified needs. More information about the survey is available here in the documents section.


What is affordable housing?

The federal government considers housing to be affordable if a household spends no more than 30% of its gross income on its housing costs, including utilities. Keeping housing costs below 30 percent of income is intended to ensure that households have enough money to pay for other non-discretionary costs; therefore, policymakers consider households who spend more than 30 percent of their income on housing costs to be housing cost-burdened. In Blacksburg, based on findings from the New River Valley Regional Housing Study, any households earning less than $88,000 will have difficulty finding affordable housing in Blacksburg based on this definition and would be considered cost-burdened.


How does the Town of Blacksburg Invest in Affordable Housing?

Blacksburg currently has access to two streams of public funding allocated at the federal level by HUD, which help us provide subsidies for local affordable housing developments. This is not sufficient to meet the affordable housing needs within our community. These existing funding streams include HOME and CDBG (Community Development Block Grant) funds. HOME funds can be used to finance a wide variety of affordable housing activities that generally fall into four categories: rehabilitation of owner-occupied housing; assistance to home buyers; acquisition, rehabilitation, or construction of rental housing; and tenant-based rental assistance. CDBG funds may be used for community development activities such as real estate acquisition, relocation, demolition, rehabilitation of housing. However, these funds can also be used for the construction of public facilities, improvements (such as water, sewer, and other utilities, street paving, and sidewalks), and support for a variety of public services. Both HOME and CDBG funds only support projects serving households earning 80% of Area Median Income or less and require a minimum of 30 years of guaranteed project affordability.


Questions?

Do you have a question or comment about the affordable housing goals of this project? Please register and submit them below. This website is specifically about affordable housing in Blacksburg and how it relates to the Stroubles Ridge Development project. Housing and Neighborhood staff will be responding to these questions.

If you have questions or comments related to the approved Boundary Line Adjustment request, please email Anne McClung at: amcclung@blacksburg.gov with the Planning and Building Department.

Page last updated: 12 Jan 2022, 07:57 AM