Staff photo / Bob Coupland Matt Martin, executive director of Trumbull Neighborhood Partnership, shows the former Devon School property between Central Parkway Avenue SE and Trumbull Avenue SE that is being proposed as the site to build four single-family homes. TNP is finalizing an agreement with Warren City Schools for the property.

WARREN — Members of the Warren City Schools Board of Education support a plan by Trumbull Neighborhood Partnership to build four single-family homes at the former Devon School property on the city’s southeast side.

Matt Martin, executive director of TNP, an organization that works to develop vacant and derelict properties into productive use, addressed the board and school officials on the proposal when the board met Aug. 27.

He said among the organization’s goals are beautifying the city through blight removal using demolitions of structures and building new homes on vacant lots.

Martin said the former Devon School property between Central Parkway Avenue SE and Trumbull Avenue SE has the acreage needed to construct four homes. The school was demolished in 2010.

Martin said since its demolition, the school property has been utilized for passive greenspace.

“It is an ideal location for single-family home construction,” he said.

The Trumbull County Land Bank was awarded a $700,000 grant from the Ohio Department of Development that allows for the construction of the four new homes that can then be sold, Martin said.

The funding, announced in May, was part of the first round of grants through Welcome Home Ohio, a program that plans to invest $100 million in grants over two years to provide affordable and safe housing.

Martin said the money will go toward a $1.2 million project to purchase four single-family homes to be sold to qualified homebuyers.

“A couple of those sites are very attractive for this because of the way they are positioned in residential neighborhoods,” Martin said.

Mikenna McClurg, land bank housing coordinator, has said the grant will make new, quality single-family homes available at a time when they are desperately needed,

INPUT FROM SCHOOL OFFICIALS

Board member Julian Walker said he likes the idea of constructing affordable homes in the city that could be made available to interested school district employees or anyone else in the community.

Said board member Regina Patterson, “We appreciate what you are doing in the community.”

The five board members agreed they support the idea.

Superintendent Steve Chiaro said he will speak with legal counsel and have a motion prepared for a future meeting on donating the property to TNP.

Martin said homes were constructed on a former school property in Niles and also were sold in a similar agreement.

Martin said once everything is finalized , construction would begin in 2025 and take between 12 and 18 months to complete.

Martin said the property would need to be surveyed and replatted into six to eight individual parcels to meet the appropriate parcel size requirements.

John Lacy, director of operations for the district, said school officials will check to make sure any action by the board is done properly regarding the property.

Martin said there are several ideas of how the homes will be placed on the property, but will wait and see what the site testing reveals on the way the school demolition was done.

“That could impact what goes where on the site. We could have two houses facing one way and two facing the other way,” he said.

Martin said the future of the property would be six to eight houses..

“We are committed to this phase having four houses. Site prep work will need to be done with an architect,” he said.