CITY – Local, state and federal officials will join with investment and development partners to celebrate the ground breaking of “The Community Gardens” –the newest “affordable senior” apartment community in “Springfield, Ohio” and to celebrate Neighborhood Housing Partnership’s 15-year anniversary.
Mayor Warren Copeland will kick off the ceremony by talking about the impact this development will have on the community.
The Community Gardens will consist of 50 apartments located on 7 acres at the corner of E. High Street and S. Burnett Rd. The units will have 2 bedrooms and will be available to residents who earn up to 60% of the area median income. The homes will be fully accessible and have interconnected walking paths throughout the development.
“The Community Gardens is important to the economic development of our city and is a blessing to seniors.”
Many local organizations, financial institutions and government leaders played a role in developing this project. Partners in the project include: Ohio Housing Finance Agency, Neighborhood Housing Partnership of Greater Springfield, Buckeye Hope Community Foundation, Ohio Capital Corporation for Housing, River Hills Bank, the City of Springfield, The Federal Home Loan Bank of Cincinnati, NeighborWorks America, HUD, McCall Sharp Architecture, United Senior Services, Mercy Health, the Clark County Combined Health District, and Kapp Construction.
The apartment community was partially financed by equity raised from the Low Income Housing Tax Credit Program. This federal program provides a dollar-for-dollar reduction in income taxes for developers of affordable housing in exchange for providing below-market rents for at least 15 years. The tax credits are then sold to investors, who provide equity to the project.
The development partners are Buckeye Community Hope Foundation (BCHF) and Neighborhood Housing Partnership of Greater Springfield, Inc (NHP). NHP was established in partnership with the Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation’s NeighborWorks® network to assist in increasing home ownership for low and moderate-income residents, promote rehabilitation of housing, and provide home improvements. BCHF Ohio’s office was founded in 1991 as a non-profit corporation with the mission of developing affordable housing for low-income families and individuals. Today BCHF has 90 projects consisting of more than 3,700 units of affordable housing across Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia, Indiana, Kentucky, and South Carolina with targeted investments in Pennsylvania, Illinois and Tennessee.
Ohio Capital Corporation for Housing (OCCH) is a non-profit financial intermediary that provides developers of affordable housing with access to capital markets. Created in 1989, OCCH has raised over $3 billion in equity investment, financed more than 33,500 units of affordable housing, and assisted in the creation of more than 675 affordable housing projects. As a now independent and self-supporting 501©3 nonprofit organization with its own Board of Directors, OCCH has become the largest locally controlled syndicator of Low Income Housing Tax Credits in the nation.