MANSFIELD — A proposed affordable housing development on Mansfield’s north end has hit a bump in the road.
The Richland County Land Bank owns the properties at 445 and 455 Bowman Street, the site of the former Ocie Hill Neighborhood Center.
Earlier this year, the land bank board approved a purchase agreement with Wisconsin-based developer Volker, which aims to construct an affordable housing complex for seniors on the property.
However, Volker’s decision to purchase and develop the property is contingent on receiving state funds.
The Ohio Housing Finance Agency is a state agency that provides financing for the development and rehabilitation of affordable rental housing through the Housing Tax Credit program, issuing tax-exempt mortgage revenue bonds and other affordable housing programs, according to its website.
In August, Volker submitted a proposal summary aimed at securing a 4-percent Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) from OHFA. OHFA recently invited the highest-scoring proposals to submit applications.
“We did not get invited to submit, however they did put us on a waitlist,” said Greg Baron, managing director of development at Volker, during a land bank board meeting Wednesday afternoon.
According to Baron, ten of the 51 applicants across the state were invited to apply.
Developer: ‘We don’t want to give up on this site’
The proposed facility at Ocie Hill would be an independent, senior housing complex with one- and two-bedroom units available to individuals 55 and older.
Units would be available to households earning between 50 and 70 percent of the average median income, according to the proposal submitted to OHFA.
Baron had previously expressed confidence the project would be approved for funding.
“There’s never a guarantee, but we feel good about it,” Baron said in July.
Volker increased the number of units on the project proposal at the last minute in an effort to make it more competitive, Baron said.
“We originally talked about doing 85 or so total units. We caught wind of another project that would compete with us that would likely do about 100 total units,” he said. “So, right before submission, we made a change and bumped up our unit count for this project to 102 units.”
On Wednesday, Baron said the Ocie Hill project was ultimately upstaged by a senior housing development in Sandusky with a proposed 132 units. However, the increased number of proposed units could still pay off.
All proposals were scored based on OHFA criteria, Baron explained. Projects are categorized based on whether they’re located in a rural or urban county and whether units will be available to the general population or seniors (age 55 and up) only.
Baron said Ocie Hill is the highest scoring senior housing project on the wait list, so there’s still a possibility of receiving funding if another project falls through.
“It all depends on, if someone falls out, will they go to a general occupancy or a senior deal?” he said. “If it’s a senior deal, then we would be first in line.”
(Ocie Hill technically tied with several other proposals, but has the high-test number of proposed units for a senior housing development, which Baron said will likely serve as a tie-breaking factor.)
Baron said he and Hamrick plan to meet with OHFA staff in early December to “debrief” the application and discuss other funding strategies.
“We were very close,” Baron said. “We want to pick their brain on what strategies are out there and discuss next steps with this.”
Baron said Volker is still interested in building senior housing at Ocie Hill and is willing to apply for future rounds of OHFA funding to do so.
“We don’t want to give up on this site,” he said. “We think it’s a great development site. We think there’s a lot of potential here.”
Even if funding comes through, project will likely require a height variance
Mansfield Mayor Jodie Perry, a member of the land bank board, said there may be issues getting the project approved for 102 units due to height restrictions in the city’s code.
“I think you’d have to go vertical so much higher than our code (allows). Based on some other conversations at planning commission … it wouldn’t be a slam dunk, let me say it that way,” she said. “Obviously when you get ready again, we’ll talk and look — things change, but I do want to put that on your radar.”
Mansfield’s current zoning code allows buildings zoned multifamily housing to be two stories high and have a maximum height of 25 feet. Anything outside of that scope would require a variance from the city’s planning commission.
Baron said regardless of whether the building houses 85 units or 102 units, Volker and the project architect would expect the project to be three stories high.
Several North End residents expressed concerns about the project this summer.
Before voting to finalize a purchase agreement with Volker, the Land Bank partnered with the North End Community Improvement Collaborative (NECIC) to host a public input session for the community.
During that event, many residents voiced a desire to see youth services return to the neighborhood and pushed back on the “rushed” timeline.
But a survey conducted by NECIC in 2023 also found support among residents for housing at the Ocie Hill site. More than one in five respondents said they’d like to see senior housing on the lot, while 16 percent said they’d like to see low-income housing.
Baron has verbally committed to working with the NECIC to support its work to build a community center directly south of the Ocie Hill property that could help fill the void left behind when the neighborhood center closed in 2020.
“NECIC is in support of this project as long as the project supports our community impact center,” Tionna Perdue, NECIC’s chief operating officer, said in July.
“If we can collaborate in some way that we are still able to maintain and get that space for parking — if that means shared parking, if that is a walking path of some sort — we would definitely like to see the whole entire block redone.”
The land bank board also:
- Voted to request $230,000 in demolition funding from the Ohio Department of Development. The most recent state biennium budget set aside $230,000 in funds for each county to demolish commercial and residential buildings and revitalize surrounding properties on non-brownfield sites. (Other state programs provide funding for brownfield remediation.).
- Voted to donate a sidewalk easement to the Village of Plymouth for a land-bank owned parcel on Trux Street.
