Wednesday, June 11, 2008

15 affordable units coming online

About 100 attend open house at Scott/Northwood commercial building


By GREG STAHL
Express Staff Writer

The new Scott/Northwood commercial building at the north end of Ketchum’s light-industrial area includes offices, market-rate condominiums and 15 deed-restricted community housing units. The building is still under construction, but about 100 area residents attended an open house on Thursday, June 5, to peruse the new housing. Photo by Willy Cook

Dhwani Pearson was born and raised in the Wood River Valley. She's a massage therapist at Zenergy, and she wants to continue living here. But if not for deed-restricted community housing that would probably not be possible.

"I have roots here," Pearson said Thursday afternoon at an open house tour of 15 community housing units that are under construction at the new 85,208-square-foot Scott/Northwood commercial building in Ketchum's light industrial area. "I love access to the outdoors. It's small enough and big enough at the same time."

Pearson said she looked into buying a home a few years ago, before real estate prices leapt dramatically, and found it might have been feasible to purchase a home with help from her family. The timing, however, was wrong, and that window of opportunity passed.

"I absolutely couldn't buy here now," she said, and she's not interested in commuting from Hailey.

Blaine County Housing Authority Executive Director Jim Fackrell said the 15 condominiums on the second floor of the new commercial building range in price between $105,870 and $423,493. The smallest is 407 square feet and has one bedroom. The largest is 1,122 square feet and has two bedrooms.

"I think this development has the largest number of community housing units in Ketchum to date," Fackrell said. "But certainly this has been a popular development."

During the course of the three-hour open house Thursday 100 or more local residents and prospective homebuyers perused the development. Among them was Rebekah Helzel, the executive director of ARCH Housing Trust, a local community-housing advocate.

She said the units, built by Wilson Construction, appeared well designed.

"They've been thought through as if real people are going to live here," she said. "Part of it is because of the involvement of Scott USA. It's not just a developer. It's a company that has employees and wants to keep them here."

Blaine County Housing Authority Office Manager Nancy Smith pointed out that the authority's database of prospective community home buyers includes about 400 area residents, but the database is being updated this year. By the end of 2008 only applicants who have applied or re-submitted in 2007 or 2008 will be included in the file.

A 2006 housing needs assessment commissioned by the authority indicated that about 3,000 people commute to work in Blaine County daily.




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