Seeing green: two projects receive funding
New Hampshire Housing Finance Authority recently completed the real estate and financial closing on an important preservation project involving the Cocheco Park property in Dover. Cocheco Park included a total of 102 units of senior housing in the downtown area. With the property’s original affordability restrictions due to expire, a nonprofit, Preservation of Affordable Housing Inc. (POAH), entered into an agreement to purchase the property. With New Hampshire Housing’s funding support in the form of a $1 million subsidy commitment, nearly $4.6 million in tax exempt bond financing, and housing tax credits, POAH will retain long-term commitment of affordable housing restrictions on 78 units while 24 units will be offered at market rents. The financing enabled POAH to acquire and improve the property thereby avoiding the feared conversion to condominiums with the resulting displacement of 102 low-income senior households. Total development costs for the Cocheco project, including acquisition and rehabilitation, are estimated to be nearly $8 million.
At its recent meeting, New Hampshire Housing’s Board of Directors approved the commitment of capital subsidy in the amount of up to $600,000 from the Authority’s fiscal year 2008 Rental Housing Production Program using money from the HOME Investment Partnership Program (HOME) to support the Littleton Town & Country Project. The capital subsidy will be structured as a deferred payment loan at an interest rate equaling the Applicable Federal Rate (AFR) at the time of closing, with a term of 30 years.Town & Country is located on two sites, Mann’s Hill Road and 123 Cottage St., in Littleton. Both sites are new construction, with a grand total of 25 units. The Cottage Street property has an existing occupied residential building, which will be razed as part of the development. The developer plans to construct the Mann’s Hill project first, and then permanently move eligible existing tenants in the Cottage Street property to Mann’s Hill. Ineligible tenants will be relocated to other equivalent housing in Littleton. The developer has committed to meeting the standards of the federal Uniform Relocation Act.
All of the units at Town & Country will be for low-income households. The unit mix is 17 two-bedroom units and 8 three-bedroom units.