Developer notes changes in plan

By jeanne starmack

starmack @vindy.com

struthers

A developer that wants to build senior-citizen housing in the city says there are some minor differences between a previous project plan and its present one.

The main difference for the housing, said Roy Lowenstein of Buckeye Community Hope Foundation in Columbus, is the source of funding Buckeye would use.

Buckeye is partnering with a local organization called Mahoning County Housing Finance Authority to bring 40 one-bedroom, 670-square-foot apartments with garages to four acres behind Youngstown-Poland Road.

Buckeye, a nonprofit developer that seeks public programs to build low- to moderate-income housing, had tried once before to get funds to build on the property.

Saxony Place was originally supposed to be one- or two-bedroom units with garages.

Other differences were the age limits for residents, Lowenstein said Wednesday from his Columbus office.

The first complex had an age limit of 55-plus. Now, the age minimum is 62, Lowenstein said.

The income requirement is different as well, he said. Rents will be 30 percent of monthly incomes in the present plan as opposed to 60 percent in the former one, he said.

The former plan, which would have been funded through tax credits from the Ohio Housing Finance Agency, didn’t go through after Buckeye found out in March its application for the funding lost out to competitors.

Struthers council had passed a resolution to support the developer’s effort to get the funding back then.

At a meeting in May, the developer asked for support again.

But this time, Lowenstein said, council decided it wanted a meeting to ask 2nd Ward residents for input on whether the project belongs in the neighborhood.

He said that council did not do that the first time and got feedback later.

The meeting is set for 6:30 p.m. Monday at the Struthers Middle School auditorium at 800 Fifth St.