The city of Columbus is donating vacant property on Pearl Street in the hopes of creating affordable housing for a first-time homebuyer.
The Columbus Board of Works voted Tuesday to donate 1320 Pearl St. to the Southern Indiana Housing and Community Development Corp. (SIHCDC).
“The property located at 1320 Pearl St. was previously a two-story house which had irreparable fire damage in early 2021 and was condemned,” assistant community development director Robin Hilber stated in a memo to the board. “It was quit claimed to the City of Columbus in March of 2021 and the house was demolished shortly thereafter with the assistance of the Department of Public Works.”
Hilber said that the SIHCDC plans to use the site to build the fifth affordable house in the “LCNFC Collaborative Housing Project” next fall. The house will then be sold to a qualified homebuyer once it’s completed in 2024.
The Lincoln Central Neighborhood Homebuyer Program is a collaborative effort between several partners, including the SIHCDC and the Bartholomew Consolidated School Corp.’s C4 Building Trades Program Corp. (Barcon Vocational Builder, Inc.).
The SIHCDC acts as the developer for the homebuyer program, SIHCDC executive director Eric Frey said in a previous interview. C4 handles construction of housing that is both affordable and of good quality. The Lincoln-Central Neighborhood Family Center, in conjunction with other partners, provides resources to prospective buyers as they go through the application and homebuying process.
According to Hilber, the program’s fourth house is currently being built on Ninth Street, behind Second Baptist Church. Houses in the program are sold to first-time homebuyers with low to moderate income.
“We just really wanted to try to increase homeownership in that area,” she said. “Many years ago, I think that was 60, 70% homeownership in the Lincoln-Central neighborhood, 30% rental, and that’s really sort of flipped over the last 20 or 30 years. So we’d like to turn that into more home ownership if possible.”
