Funding for Brevard Affordable Housing Project a "Great Step Forward"

The 60-unit Fairhaven Meadows project planned for Asheville Highway learned Tuesday that it will receive federal tax credits. But work remains to address the housing shortage, leaders said.

BREVARD — Fairhaven Meadows on Tuesday was awarded the federal funding it needed to become the first affordable housing complex built in the city in nearly a decade — and to start easing Transylvania County’s dire shortage of such units.

It won’t solve the local “affordable housing crisis — and it is a crisis,” said Mayor Maureen Copelof, but “the city is so excited and so happy to be moving forward with this.”

The 60-unit development is planned for a 4.6-acre parcel on Asheville Highway within the city of Brevard. It does not need a zoning change to begin construction and will be served by city sewer and water lines, said Copelof and Council member Aaron Baker.

Copelof praised this location, noting that it does not pour traffic onto narrow, curving streets — an issue that helped sink some previously proposed affordable developments.

But Baker pointed out that the site, across from and southwest of the Ecusta Road intersection, does not have direct access to the multi-use Estatoe Trail and is not within walking distance of a supermarket. (The developer said it working with the city to extend the trail to the project.)

“Sometimes people don’t appreciate the fact that a lot of folks in certain income brackets are walking a lot more,” he said. “There’s no perfect project, but this is a great step forward.”

Fairhaven will be developed by a Wisconsin-based company that specializes in such projects, Commonwealth Development Corporation, and serve families earning between 40 and 70 percent of the county’s annual median household income, which was about $59,000 in 2021.

The median income figure is higher for larger households, meaning that large one-income families headed by starting teachers or law enforcement officers could qualify to live there, “as well as a lot of clerical and restaurant and retail workers,” Sean Brady, a Commonwealth vice president, said in May.

Brady did not return phone calls or emails on Thursday. But according to information the company provided to the city, the monthly rents will range from $419 to $1,071 depending on the number of bedrooms. The company must still complete design and permitting, but expects to begin construction next year, it told the city.

Brady did send an email on Wednesday saying Fairhaven was one of 28 projects across the state awarded low-income tax credits. It received $12 million in these credits over 10 years, according to an email he attached from the North Carolina Housing Finance Agency. The project is also receiving assistance from other organizations.

Cottages at Brevard, a 40-unit affordable housing project, was completed in 2013 but is open only to residents 62 and older. Broad River Terrace, off Old Hendersonville Highway, is the most recent tax-credit complex built in the city that, like Fairhaven, is not age-restricted. It was completed in 2011, according to a presentation about affordable housing at a Council Meeting last year.

A regional housing report completed late last year by Bowen National Research found Transylvania required an addition of about 500 income-restricted units to house its low-income and working residents. Bowen researchers counted precisely zero available subsidized units in the county and reported long waiting lists of prospective tenants at the complexes that offer them.

Copelof said Fairhaven represents an approach appropriate for the city — adding these units when the opportunities arise, including by building medium-sized complexes and smaller collections of units on infill parcels.

“I think that 60 units is a great size for our city,” she said. “It doesn’t create a massive influx of people who will overwhelm our streets.”

But Baker said the city is a long way from filling the vast demand for such housing. The shortage must still be addressed, including by creating more land for such dense development as the city continues to working on updating and combining its land-use rules.

“I don’t want us thinking that we’re done,” he said.

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