grant street grow homes
grant street grow homes
Growing Homeowner Diversity through Middle Housing
In progress | 1930 Grant Street, Eugene, Oregon
Located in an underutilized backyard in the Far West neighborhood of Eugene, the Grant Street Grow Homes concept offers a scalable model for anti-displacement, pro-empowerment middle housing.
The project:
- Features efficiency homes targeting first-time BIPOC buyers, including:
- (3) Grow homes allowing DIY expansion
- (1) Accessible ground-floor home
- Includes outreach to local Latinx businesses and nonprofits
- Is based on a Shared Equity Homeownership model, offering permanent affordability through deed restriction
- Features Net Zero Energy – sustainable construction and low utility bills, contributing to city and state sustainability goals
- Helps to address our housing crisis by offering anti-displacement homeownership in a gentrifying, walkable neighborhood
The townhomes will provide permanently affordable homeownership targeting four first-time Latino home buyers, young and old, at the 61% to 80% AMI level.
Three of the homes can “grow,” each starting as a one-bedroom, one-bathroom townhome but with plumbing and electrical systems in place to enable conversion to a three-bedroom, two-bathroom townhome. This lowers the up-front cost barrier to homeownership while anticipating the needs of growing families.
A fourth ground-level home integrates accessibility into the fabric of an existing neighborhood and offers senior populations an opportunity to age-in-community, not just age-in-place. The homes further sustainability goals through Net Zero Energy construction and by enhancing the people-density necessary to support neighborhood walkability and transit frequency.
Though small in scale, the Grant Street Grow Homes demonstrate how an otherwise gentrifying neighborhood can instead become an incubator of socio-economic diversity through permanently affordable homeownership. The use of simple, well-crafted deed restrictions offers a tool for local nonprofits and market-rate developers alike to pursue middle housing opportunities that counter rather than perpetuate the displacement of low-income households.
Homeownership is critical to establishing economic stability, avoiding displacement, and building intergenerational wealth. As documented by Better Housing Together, the median wealth of Black and Hispanic families is less than 12% of that of white families, and this racial inequality has been growing since the 1960’s. In Oregon, Black and Hispanic homeownership rates are 40% lower than white homeownership rates (Source: Urban Institute). Latine/x/a/o are Lane County’s largest minority group, and growing rapidly: Latinos currently comprise 14% of Oregon’s population and are projected to comprise 24% of Oregon’s population by 2030. Recent listening/learning sessions among Oregon’s Latino leaders hosted by Meyer Memorial Trust specifically identified homeownership access as a critical need:
“Immigrant and refugee communities face unique obstacles to securing housing and building intergenerational wealth. More resources are needed to provide homeownership opportunities, purchase land and increase financial access and education.”
—Vision Comunitaria: Listening and Learning from the Growing Latine/x/a/o Community’s Vision, Meyer Memorial Trust, 2022
Additionally, Oregon Metro reports that Latinos collectively represent more than one-third of manual labor construction trades, including drywall, flooring, and roofing installers. The Grant Street Grow Homes offer a unique opportunity to access homeownership and leverage sweat equity among Eugene’s Latino contractor population. We will therefore be targeting low-income BIPOC populations, and Latinos in particular, by directly advertising the homes sales to neighborhood BIPOC and Latino contractors, businesses, and nonprofits.
As of April 2023, the project has been recommended for Affordable Housing Trust Funding after receiving the highest scoring of all applications, and award of the funding is pending City Council approval. While the homes are planned for construction regardless of this funding, receipt of the funding will allow Cultivate to deliver the homes as attainable homeownership opportunities for low-income, demographically diverse families in perpetuity. The funding will provide a one-time subsidy that will be directly applied to lower the sale price of the new homes, and when an owner decides to sell, this subsidy will be passed on to the next low-income homeowner via a deed restriction that keeps the sale price at a set percentage below market-rate appraisal value.
This is an anti-displacement, pro-empowerment model of housing—one that enables successive generations of households, who would otherwise be limited to rental housing, to retain their own equity rather than build their landlord’s. This type of small-scale “affordable inclusion” incubator will provide a precedent for many other developments in Eugene on parcels that are now developable under Oregon’s new middle housing opportunity.
What kind of neighborhood do we want? To date, many existing homeowners in the neighborhood have voiced both support and opposition to the project through the public AHTF approval process. The primary concerns of those voicing opposition center on parking access, density, and impacts to home values. We understand these concerns and encourage our community to consider them in context.
In 2021, the State of Oregon passed new middle housing protections into law which seek to address our nationwide housing crisis by prohibiting exclusive single-family zoning which was systematically designed to and has been very effective at pricing those of lesser means—especially people of color—out of homeownership access and neighborhood access. This legislation was followed by the Climate Friendly Equitable Communities Act. This Act reduces the ability of Oregon cities to mandate the off-street parking requirements which have subsidized private automobile transportation for nearly a century, to the point that it is scarcely possible to imagine a serious alternative.
In addition to the climate impacts and fossil-fuel dependency this has caused, it has also become clear that off-street parking requirements come at direct odds with housing affordability. For these reasons, the Affordable Housing Trust Fund Request for Proposal specifically encouraged applicants to explore innovative housing models and to minimize off-street parking.
By design, and in concert with community-wide interests and legal protections, the Grant Street Grow Homes seek to overcome the status quo with regard to homeownership access and automobile dependency. Notably, such homes can and will be built by-right today without special approval or funding. Receipt of AHTF funds would simply allow us to make these unique Grow Homes accessible to low-income buyers.
It is not a question of if backyard homes like this will be built, but who will have the opportunity to own them, and thereby find the stability of homeownership and a sense of belonging in this neighborhood.
Growing Homeowner Diversity through Middle Housing
In progress | 1930 Grant St, Eugene, Oregon
Located in an underutilized backyard in the Far West neighborhood of Eugene, the Grant Street Grow Homes concept offers a scalable model for anti-displacement, pro-empowerment middle housing.
The project:
- Features efficiency homes targeting first-time BIPOC buyers, including:
- (3) Grow homes allowing DIY expansion
- (1) Accessible ground-floor home
- Includes outreach to local Latinx businesses and nonprofits
- Is based on a Shared Equity Homeownership model, offering permanent affordability through deed restriction
- Features Net Zero Energy – sustainable construction and low utility bills, contributing to city and state sustainability goals
- Helps to address our housing crisis by offering anti-displacement homeownership in a gentrifying, walkable neighborhood
The townhomes will provide permanently affordable homeownership targeting four first-time Latino home buyers, young and old, at the 61% to 80% AMI level.
Three of the homes can “grow,” each starting as a one-bedroom, one-bathroom townhome but with plumbing and electrical systems in place to enable conversion to a three-bedroom, two-bathroom townhome. This lowers the up-front cost barrier to homeownership while anticipating the needs of growing families.
A fourth ground-level home integrates accessibility into the fabric of an existing neighborhood and offers senior populations an opportunity to age-in-community, not just age-in-place. The homes further sustainability goals through Net Zero Energy construction and by enhancing the people-density necessary to support neighborhood walkability and transit frequency.
Though small in scale, the Grant Street Grow Homes demonstrate how an otherwise gentrifying neighborhood can instead become an incubator of socio-economic diversity through permanently affordable homeownership. The use of simple, well-crafted deed restrictions offers a tool for local nonprofits and market-rate developers alike to pursue middle housing opportunities that counter rather than perpetuate the displacement of low-income households.
Homeownership is critical to establishing economic stability, avoiding displacement, and building intergenerational wealth. As documented by Better Housing Together, the median wealth of Black and Hispanic families is less than 12% of that of white families, and this racial inequality has been growing since the 1960’s. In Oregon, Black and Hispanic homeownership rates are 40% lower than white homeownership rates (Source: Urban Institute). Latine/x/a/o are Lane County’s largest minority group, and growing rapidly: Latinos currently comprise 14% of Oregon’s population and are projected to comprise 24% of Oregon’s population by 2030. Recent listening/learning sessions among Oregon’s Latino leaders hosted by Meyer Memorial Trust specifically identified homeownership access as a critical need:
“Immigrant and refugee communities face unique obstacles to securing housing and building intergenerational wealth. More resources are needed to provide homeownership opportunities, purchase land and increase financial access and education.”
—Vision Comunitaria: Listening and Learning from the Growing Latine/x/a/o Community’s Vision, Meyer Memorial Trust, 2022
Additionally, Oregon Metro reports that Latinos collectively represent more than one-third of manual labor construction trades, including drywall, flooring, and roofing installers. The Grant Street Grow Homes offer a unique opportunity to access homeownership and leverage sweat equity among Eugene’s Latino contractor population. We will therefore be targeting low-income BIPOC populations, and Latinos in particular, by directly advertising the homes sales to neighborhood BIPOC and Latino contractors, businesses, and nonprofits.
As of April 2023, the project has been recommended for Affordable Housing Trust Funding after receiving the highest scoring of all applications, and award of the funding is pending City Council approval. While the homes are planned for construction regardless of this funding, receipt of the funding will allow Cultivate to deliver the homes as attainable homeownership opportunities for low-income, demographically diverse families in perpetuity. The funding will provide a one-time subsidy that will be directly applied to lower the sale price of the new homes, and when an owner decides to sell, this subsidy will be passed on to the next low-income homeowner via a deed restriction that keeps the sale price at a set percentage below market-rate appraisal value.
This is an anti-displacement, pro-empowerment model of housing—one that enables successive generations of households, who would otherwise be limited to rental housing, to retain their own equity rather than build their landlord’s. This type of small-scale “affordable inclusion” incubator will provide a precedent for many other developments in Eugene on parcels that are now developable under Oregon’s new middle housing opportunity.
What kind of neighborhood do we want? To date, many existing homeowners in the neighborhood have voiced both support and opposition to the project through the public AHTF approval process. The primary concerns of those voicing opposition center on parking access, density, and impacts to home values. We understand these concerns and encourage our community to consider them in context.
In 2021, the State of Oregon passed new middle housing protections into law which seek to address our nationwide housing crisis by prohibiting exclusive single-family zoning which was systematically designed to and has been very effective at pricing those of lesser means—especially people of color—out of homeownership access and neighborhood access. This legislation was followed by the Climate Friendly Equitable Communities Act. This Act reduces the ability of Oregon cities to mandate the off-street parking requirements which have subsidized private automobile transportation for nearly a century, to the point that it is scarcely possible to imagine a serious alternative.
In addition to the climate impacts and fossil-fuel dependency this has caused, it has also become clear that off-street parking requirements come at direct odds with housing affordability. For these reasons, the Affordable Housing Trust Fund Request for Proposal specifically encouraged applicants to explore innovative housing models and to minimize off-street parking.
By design, and in concert with community-wide interests and legal protections, the Grant Street Grow Homes seek to overcome the status quo with regard to homeownership access and automobile dependency. Notably, such homes can and will be built by-right today without special approval or funding. Receipt of AHTF funds would simply allow us to make these unique Grow Homes accessible to low-income buyers.
It is not a question of if backyard homes like this will be built, but who will have the opportunity to own them, and thereby find the stability of homeownership and a sense of belonging in this neighborhood.
Additionally, Oregon Metro reports that Latinos collectively represent more than one-third of manual labor construction trades, including drywall, flooring, and roofing installers. The Grant Street Grow Homes offer a unique opportunity to access homeownership and leverage sweat equity among Eugene’s Latino contractor population. We will therefore be targeting low-income BIPOC populations, and Latinos in particular, by directly advertising the homes sales to neighborhood BIPOC and Latino contractors, businesses, and nonprofits.
As of April 2023, the project has been recommended for Affordable Housing Trust Funding after receiving the highest scoring of all applications, and award of the funding is pending City Council approval. While the homes are planned for construction regardless of this funding, receipt of the funding will allow Cultivate to deliver the homes as attainable homeownership opportunities for low-income, demographically diverse families in perpetuity. The funding will provide a one-time subsidy that will be directly applied to lower the sale price of the new homes, and when an owner decides to sell, this subsidy will be passed on to the next low-income homeowner via a deed restriction that keeps the sale price at a set percentage below market-rate appraisal value.
This is an anti-displacement, pro-empowerment model of housing—one that enables successive generations of households, who would otherwise be limited to rental housing, to retain their own equity rather than build their landlord’s. This type of small-scale “affordable inclusion” incubator will provide a precedent for many other developments in Eugene on parcels that are now developable under Oregon’s new middle housing opportunity.
What kind of neighborhood do we want? To date, many existing homeowners in the neighborhood have voiced both support and opposition to the project through the public AHTF approval process. The primary concerns of those voicing opposition center on parking access, density, and impacts to home values. We understand these concerns and encourage our community to consider them in context.
In 2021, the State of Oregon passed new middle housing protections into law which seek to address our nationwide housing crisis by prohibiting exclusive single-family zoning which was systematically designed to and has been very effective at pricing those of lesser means—especially people of color—out of homeownership access and neighborhood access. This legislation was followed by the Climate Friendly Equitable Communities Act. This Act reduces the ability of Oregon cities to mandate the off-street parking requirements which have subsidized private automobile transportation for nearly a century, to the point that it is scarcely possible to imagine a serious alternative.
In addition to the climate impacts and fossil-fuel dependency this has caused, it has also become clear that off-street parking requirements come at direct odds with housing affordability. For these reasons, the Affordable Housing Trust Fund Request for Proposal specifically encouraged applicants to explore innovative housing models and to minimize off-street parking.
By design, and in concert with community-wide interests and legal protections, the Grant Street Grow Homes seek to overcome the status quo with regard to homeownership access and automobile dependency. Notably, such homes can and will be built by-right today without special approval or funding. Receipt of AHTF funds would simply allow us to make these unique Grow Homes accessible to low-income buyers.
It is not a question of if backyard homes like this will be built, but who will have the opportunity to own them, and thereby find the stability of homeownership and a sense of belonging in this neighborhood.