For the week of April 16 - 22, 2003

Affordable unit for sale at Deer Creek

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By GREG STAHL
Express Staff Writer

Blaine County is getting its first deed-restricted affordable housing, and the Blaine-Ketchum Housing Authority is searching for area residents interested in buying the three-bedroom Deer Creek home.

To qualify, one person must make $38,100 or less per year, and a family of four must make less than $54,400. The one-story ranch-style home will cost $147,500, which will translate to roughly $850 monthly payments using current interest rates.

Preference will be given to Blaine County residents who work within five miles of the home, which will be an area reaching roughly to Gimlet on the north and to Friedman Memorial Airport on the south.

Under Blaine-Ketchum Housing Authority guidelines, the home’s inflation will be limited to the lesser of either the consumer price index or 4 percent a year.

"This is the county’s first unit, yes," said Blaine-Ketchum Housing Authority Director Dick Duncan. "It’s targeted at a family of three or four."

The Blaine-Ketchum Housing Authority, formerly the Blaine County Housing Authority, was formed in 1996, but this is the first county-based home the group will sell. The Housing Authority has managed the sales and re-sales of Ketchum-based units at The Fields and River Glenn.

Though county leaders did not require developers of Deer Valley Farms to provide housing, they offered it as a suggestion, Duncan said.

County leaders are still working on affordable housing guidelines they have been drafting off and on since 1997.

According to Duncan, the home is to be moved from Hulen Meadows to its new site just north of Deer Creek Road at Highway 75.

The home will be situated on a half-acre property that will include a berm separating the home from the nearby highway. It will have an approximately 2,500-square-foot irrigated lawn, a 150-square-foot deck and a private driveway.

Those interested in applying to purchase the home can call Duncan at 726-5509.

 

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