Welcome to the west side

Couple pleased with new house on Drexel Avenue

WARREN -- Ashley Reilly sat on the front porch of her newly built home last week on Drexel Avenue NW with her husband, Nolan, and laughed while recalling the number of times people have driven past the home, seemingly in amazement to see her and brand new home in the neighborhood.

In fact, it is one of four new homes side-by-side on the former Emerson School site near the intersection with Moncrest Avenue. It is across Drexel from another school and across Moncrest from Grace Methodist Church.

"People slow down and stare all the time," she said.

Trumbull Neighborhood Partnership, the 16-year-old nonprofit community organization serving the neighborhoods of Warren that built the homes, contends it's not surprising people are surprised to see new construction on Drexel Avenue.

"Many of these neighborhoods have not seen new construction in an extremely long time, so (the new homes) allow us to 'break the seal' if you will, and ... show what can be done. It's something we intend to stay with for a very long time," TNP Executive Director Matt Martin said last week.

Ashley is originally from Lorain County, and Nolan is originally from Florida. Neither of them had been to Warren before they came to the city June 6 to close on the purchase of their 1,500-square-foot, three-bedroom, 2 ½-bath home with a detached garage and basement.

They had packed up all of their belongings for their move from the Charlotte, North Carolina, area and saw the house in person the first time when they drove over to Drexel from the title company June 6.

One aspect they loved right away was the lesser amount of traffic in Warren than where they lived before. Another was the deal they got on the house.

"When we were getting ready to move up here, I was excited to come back to Ohio, but I did a little bit of research on Warren and crime rates and stuff like that. There were a lot of people on Reddit and Facebook saying 'Don't move to Warren.' But this was too good of a deal to pass up," Ashley said.

"And now that we have moved here, it's so cool," she said. "We have favorite restaurants, and the neighbors have been pretty cool. We've got a field behind us and a school in front of us, so you can't beat that. There are mature trees, and it's really nice."

Nolan said a "hesitancy" they felt when they made the move to Warren was because they were the "crazy people that bought this place sight unseen. So we were looking around for somewhere to go. We wanted to buy a house, came across this deal. And it really became feasible for us."

The "brand new, beautiful, gorgeous" home on Drexel was so much better than the other homes they considered, Nolan said.

"When we came across this, we were like, 'This is incredible,'" Nolan said. "So we were super excited to get involved and figure out what we needed to do to get qualified and go through the whole process. It was relatively painless. So it was great."

"It's worked out great. It's the best decision we have made in our entire lives," Nolan said. Ashley's family and others have come to visit. "Everybody's very impressed," Ashley said.

She noted the many "very high-end" finishings in the house, such as an alarm system and solid wood doors. It has a laundry room on the first floor. And the "kitchen flowing into the living room is super convenient for us, being a family." The appliances were included with the house.

The "deal" the Reillys got is that their new home and the three others were built by Trumbull Neighborhood Partnership, which used several government programs to create affordable middle-class housing. The home includes a 15-year property tax abatement. Warren City Council approved the four abatements at its Sept. 9 meeting.

Nolan said the program to create the four homes is "probably with all of my experiences with government at any level -- local to national -- the only thing that I can really think of that is helping working-class families get ahead." He added, "We're incredibly grateful for it."

When it was time to photograph the Reillys and their home, they stood out front. And to their delight, a driver went by and yelled, "Welcome to the neighborhood!" And the Reillys smiled and waved.

THE DEAL

Martin said last week the four homes on Drexel were sold during the early part of this year, and TNP expects to host a groundbreaking this fall for 10 more. All 10 homes will be sold to people who live in them, not rentals, just like the four on Drexel.

TNP will add three more new homes on that same Emerson School site as the homes on Drexel, but this time they will make the turn at Moncrest and use the remaining tree-lined area there.

TNP also will build three more new houses on Bonnie Brae Avenue SE near the former Laird School and East Junior High sites. Those three will occupy the land where the East Junior High School baseball field was, Martin said.

Four more will be in the following areas: the central city, the northeast side and northwest side. Martin expects them to be finished by early 2027 and then sold.

"TNP is working to promote home ownership," he said. "We've spent the last nearly 16 years doing blight remediation and cleanup, and it's only in the last few years that we've turned the corner and will be constructing new homes. We are still doing renovations. But we are also looking to add more houses back to the neighborhoods."

Martin said thanks to the Welcome Home Ohio program of the Ohio Department of Development -- the state is releasing funding annually to help offset the cost of construction of new homes.

In the first round of funding -- for the four homes on Drexel -- TNP was allowed to use $100,000 in Welcome Home funds per property. That is also going to happen with the next 10.

The city of Warren is also using HOME funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for the new homes. Another funding source being applied to five of the next 10 homes is called PACE, which will be assessed onto the property instead of being charged to the property owner in the sales price.

The PACE funds will be repaid by the owner over the first 15 years. The PACE funding is intended to be a similar amount of money as the property tax savings, Martin said. That way the property owner's house payments will stay similar after the first 15 years as during the first 15 years.

Martin said this is being done because the cost to build the new houses in the target neighborhoods of the program exceeds the property values in that neighborhood.

He said it is a creative way to put the price of the new TNP homes at or slightly above the home values in that neighborhood for the benefit of the neighborhood.

"We're trying to balance between making sure that home ownership is affordable for buyers, but we also want to make sure we are protecting and enhancing the property values for existing neighbors," Martin said.

The price for the homes on Drexel average about $175,000 -- just a little above average for the neighborhood, Martin said. "The homeowners on that street should be happy because with those numbers, their property values have been stabilized, possibly even improved, because you have four (new homes in the neighborhood) that are right there at $175,000."

At the same time, the buyers of the new homes "also got great value because they have brand new, three-bedroom homes ... at $175,000, which is also great," Martin said. The same home would have cost more than $175,000 to construct on their own, Martin believes.

TNP has done hundreds of renovations in Trumbull County. It is one of the things TNP is known for, Martin said. The sale prices on TNP renovated homes is around $100,000, Martin said. Building new homes is a higher cost than renovated homes, "but they are also brand new houses, where you don't have to anticipate repairs for years," Martin said.

Over the first 15 years, the owners of the TNP homes will have expenses to maintain the house, but it's unlikely the house will need major repairs, Martin said. The four new homes on Drexel all have about 1,400-square-feet of living space.

The new homes are going in the same types of neighborhoods where TNP's renovations, demolitions, home repair, land-use projects and side-lot sales have taken place over the years, Martin noted.

Martin said if TNP continues to build affordable housing another 16 years, "we should be able to significantly lift the overall quality of the housing stock and the rates of home ownership, the amount of equity our residents can have in their properties."

In the first 16 years TNP has existed, "a lot of what we did was just about stabilizing, just even cleaning up. And what we are trying to do now is go to the next level, raise the bar a little bit," he said.

TODD JOHNSON

In an interview earlier this week, Pastor Todd Johnson, 1st Ward Councilman, said he is "deeply excited" about the four new homes on Drexel.

"I'm a 1st Ward kid and grew up going to Emerson (Elementary School.) That's where I began. I am very excited that ... this is a reality, and home ownership and home building is a reality in the First Ward. It's a step in the right direction of developing our city to be a destination for families."

He said the incentives that make it affordable for families is "something we want to see replicated around the city." He said he considers development on the West Side of town "one of the hallmarks of my time on council," saying it is development "we have not seen in decades. I'm just excited for generations to come to have that type of opportunity."

MIKE KEYS

Warren Community Development Director Mike Keys said the four homes on Drexel are in the Community Reinvestment Area that was established about a decade ago. All four homes were purchased and are occupied.

During the caucus meeting before the Sept. 9 council meeting, Keys said the CRA "allows us to obtain tax rebates for houses." He said people are very familiar with tax rebates for businesses. A CRA is similar, but is for houses.

Keys said it is a "very good sign" that all four homes were purchased and the new owners "went out and got mortgages." He said it demonstrates that "there is interest in purchasing new homes in the city of Warren."

Keys noted that obtaining a tax abatement for residential construction also took place earlier this year for a Habitat for Humanity home in Warren.

According to Tribune Chronicle files, Warren City Council approved a 15-year, 75% tax abatement for construction of a three-bedroom Habitat For Humanity home on Burton Street SE in April. That home is also in a CRA area.