2,500 new affordable homes to be built in Indiantown

Existing housing costs are pricing many people out of the market. However, developers are eyeing an area of the Treasure Coast to build more attainable and affordable new homes.

A groundbreaking ceremony was held Tuesday for a new development in Martin County that hopes to alleviate the stress of high home costs.

When complete, the new Terra Lago community could double the village's existing population, which is currently about 7,000 people.

Jonathan Pablo recalls his childhood in Indiantown.

"I remember growing up here and running around in the street lights," Pablo said.

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He's spent the past three years working in the village's utilities department and wants to settle here.

"I left for four years, came back and couldn't leave again," Pablo said. "I just had to stay."

He's eyeing what is now an empty parcel, located at 16205 Southwest Warfield Blvd., which will soon become Terra Lago.

The 800-acre development will include 2,500 new housing units, the majority of which will be single-family homes.

Townhouses, an assisted living facility, a community center and a shopping center are all part of the plan.

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"Indiantown has not even had the incremental growth," Mayor Susan Gibbs Thomas said.

She believes her village is on the right path.

"You do not want a stagnant pond, but you don't want a rushing river," Gibbs Thomas said referring to the village's growth. "You do have to have a little movement so you're not dying."

The developers said this project is giving the people of Indiantown what they want and need — attainable housing.

"Housing that can be afforded by our workforce in the Treasure Coast," Joshua Kellam of Garcia Companies said. "Housing that firefighters and teachers and first responders, blue-collar workers who are getting up and going to work every day."

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The exact prices of the homes weren't revealed at Tuesday's groundbreaking ceremony, but the developer said on its website that the townhomes will start in the $200,000s and the new single-family homes in the $300,000s. Those figures are far below Martin County's median home price of $475,000.

"I was raised by a single mother," renter Lucia Mendoza said. "Currently, I live in Indiantown. I'm a mother of five."

Mendoza said homes in the village are often sold by word of mouth and snapped up fast.

She said this could be an opportunity for her children to stay nearby and keep a strong Hispanic presence in the community.

"I can honestly tell our Hispanic community, 'Los ninos permanecerán aqui por anos,' which means our children will remain here for years."

The first new homes at Terra Lago are expected to be completed in the summer of 2025.