<body><div><figure><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=3RwUy6_1E0tLeTx00" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=3RwUy6_1E0tLeTx00" width="1280" height="720" ></figure>ITHACA, N.Y. (WENY) — As homelessness increases in Ithaca, officials from Tompkins County and Cornell University are working together to provide innovative approaches to affordable housing.“The cost of construction has gotten expensive over the past decade or even 50 years,” said Trade Design Build CEO Gideon Stone. “With the complexity of the system and the cost of materials, there’s the burden of regulatory loopholes that usually need to be addressed. I think more than anything it’s the complexity of what it takes to build a house.”According to Redfin, the average cost of a house in Ithaca is $430,000, $21,225 more expensive than the national average. The average cost of an apartment is $1,853/month compared to the $1,609/month national average.“Something we’re trying to wrap our heads around and understand, with these alternate avenues of building through modular or manufactured housing, if there’s a way we can start to break into different markets and bring holistic, healthy design to people that might not always have access to it,” said Stone.In partnership with Cornell’s Circular Construction Lab, Trade Design Build hosted ‘Building What We Value: A Conversation on Housing, Affordability, Sustainability and the Future of Home’ in Ithaca on Thursday.The expo featured a panel of speakers and an exhibition of manufactured housing concepts created by graduate students from Cornell’s Department of Architecture.“What we are offering here are 12 proposals of potential avenues for what we should think about and what we could address,” said Director of Cornell Circular Construction Lab Felix Heisel. “Each of the projects that the students worked on essentially started as one specific idea: can we plant our materials, can we harvest and integrate agriculture for self-sufficiency?”Some ideas focused on integrating agriculture into renewable building materials, while others tackled ways to legally build multiple-family units on a single housing lot.“The specific studio that triggered the event that we are attending today was a housing studio on manufactured homes as a potential solution to the housing crisis,” said Heisel. “Really thinking about whether we can prefabricate modules in the framework of manufactured housing that don’t look like or feel like manufactured homes the way we commonly attribute them. That are using healthier and regenerative materials but have a price point that is close to what we’re used to.”In 2017, Ithaca placed 8th on MarketWatch’s ‘The 10 most expensive places to raise a family in the U.S.’ Although Ithaca is no longer on the list in 2026, Tompkins County officials are working to make housing more affordable for everyone."Ithaca is one of the most expensive places to live in the Southern Tier,” said 125th District NYS Senate Assemblymember Anna Kelles. “In Tompkins County, there are about 15,000 people who commute in per day. 58% of them would like to live here if they could."According to Assemblyperson Kelles, there are already some relief efforts in Tompkins County.“We also have the Housing Trust Fund, which is super important because you can buy a home — you don’t have to buy the land,” said Assemblyperson Kelles. “Other counties do that, but the one thing that Tompkins County does is that taxes on that land are significantly reduced.”The fund is a “shared equity” program, meaning the homebuyer purchases only the house, and the Trust owns the land. The homeowner has a 99-year lease on the land and pays a monthly land rental fee.</div></body>

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ITHACA, N.Y. (WENY) — As homelessness increases in Ithaca, officials from Tompkins County and Cornell University are working together to provide innovative approaches to affordable housing. “The cost of construction has gotten expensive over the past decade or even 50 years,” said Trade Design Build CEO Gideon Stone. “With...

Tompkins Co. brainstorming affordable housing solutions

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ITHACA, N.Y. (WENY) — As homelessness increases in Ithaca, officials from Tompkins County and Cornell University are working together to provide innovative

Tompkins Co. brainstorming affordable housing solutions

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