A bare strip on Orange Center Boulevard will take shape in the comings months as a hub of homeownership, in a community that has been at the center of Orlando’s affordable housing efforts.
The Hannibal Square Community Land Trust and city officials broke ground Thursday on 30 townhomes, on land that once housed several dilapidated and foreclosed apartment complexes. The trust also has plans to build 28 rental apartments with about 15,000 square feet of retail spaces, at the site on the southside of Orange Center Boulevard west of Tampa Avenue.
“What you see today isn’t what it was. This was blight and despair and hopelessness,” said city Commissioner Regina Hill.
Construction is expected to begin in March or April, with the first townhomes expected to be completed in August or September, Camille Lewis, executive director of the Hannibal Square Community Land Trust said, and the mixed-use portion is planned to be built by mid-2023.
The addition of 30 owned homes will boost the rate of ownership by 5% in the census tract, officials said, which is 93% Black, with a median household income of about $28,000.
Prices of the townhomes haven’t been determined, but 15 and 20 of them will be designated for people making less than 80% of the area median income, Lewis said. The homes will have three bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms, with a detached two-car garage behind them.
The Townhomes at West Lakes is adjacent to the Clear Lake neighborhood of mid-century single-family homes, and across Orange Center Boulevard from the Pendana at West Lakes communities, of about 320 apartments. Those units are mixed-income and affordable, with about 120 set aside for seniors.
City Commissioner Bakari Burns, who represents the area on the city council, said the price point will make it attainable for young families and first-time homebuyers to move back to Orlando and begin building wealth. He also said the city’s down payment assistance program will help buyers with closing costs.
More homeowners will help breathe new life into the area, and chip away at a growing wealth gap, Burns said.
“When you have individuals who own a property, they tend to take more pride in the community and get more involved,” he said.
City officials purchased the property in 2017 and sold it to the trust in 2019 for $1.035 million. Two years prior, it bought seven other complexes out of foreclosure for about $6.8 million, which were developed into affordable housing.
Ultimately, the land trust won a competitive bid in 2019, which was seeking a developer to construct affordable and mixed-income housing that allowed for ownership.
“Homeownership is harder, but it also helps to lift the neighborhood much more significantly because people will own something and be able to build wealth,” Lewis said. “I think it will definitely have a revitalization impact on the community.”
(Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda/ Orlando Sentinel)
The sale set off controversy, led by then-city commissioner Samuel Ings and some neighbors, who objected to a land trust model, compared to traditional ownership.
A land trust operates similar to that of a condo. The trust maintains ownership of the land beneath the townhome, while a homeowner purchases an individual unit. The owner benefits from equity gained on the townhome, while the trust maintains ownership of the land to ensure long-term affordability.
Lewis said it’s an ideal fit for longtime renters who face rising rents.
“If you can afford a market-rate home and land, by all means, that’s what you should do,” Lewis said. “It’s kind of like a stepping stone to get you into something where you can afford something to stabilize your monthly income and your payments.”
Ultimately, city commissioners approved it by a 5-2 vote.
COVID-19 also brought challenges in securing funding to develop the project, said Camille Lewis, executive director of the trust.
However, it received investment from the newly formed Black Economic Development Fund, an investment fund to fuel economic and wealth building in the Black community. The fund is financially backed by Netflix, Aflac, Costco, PayPal and other companies.
Lewis said this was the fund’s first investment in Florida.
rygillespie@orlandosentinel.com
