City Council Meeting Date: November 21, 2023
To: Mayor and City Council
City Administrator
From: Jake Reilly, Community Development Director
Melissa Hanson, Housing Coordinator
Title
Northcountry Cooperative Foundation (NCF) Revised Concept Plan.
Body
Action Requested:
City Council to hear an update on NCF's revised concept plan for the development of HRA-owned land at Southbridge.
Summary Report:
The HRA owns approximately 7.27 acres of undeveloped land in the Southbridge area near Spring Creek Park. Adjacent to the HRA land, the City owns additional land. The HRA has been exploring a variety of development options to create affordable, environmentally sustainable, workforce housing citywide. NCF has presented an affordable homeownership concept that may fit what the HRA is looking for and has proposed developing a single-family neighborhood using factory-built homes and a resident-owner cooperative ownership model.
Background
The HRA has been exploring a variety of development options to create affordable, sustainable, workforce housing citywide. Alongside a goal to incorporate a single-family ownership option in the Southbridge neighborhood, the HRA has stated a desire to fill the gaps in the Northfield housing market identified in both the 2021 Northfield Housing Report (Att. 1) and the April 2022 Housing + Education in Northfield Technical Assistance Assessment Findings (Att. 2) report commissioned by the Northfield Promise collaborative, of which the City is a member.
NCF has presented a homeownership concept that may fit what the HRA is looking for and has proposed to develop a single-family neighborhood, with infrastructure built to City standards, using factory-built homes for the product and a resident-owner cooperative model likely handled through a common-interest-community plat as the underlying legal framework.
NCF presented the initial concept plan at the HRA's May 4, 2023 regular meeting. At that meeting, the HRA Board authoriz...
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