This initiative offers entrepreneurial housing opportunities for residents in urban neighborhoods through an infill development with owner occupied units and attached rental apartments.
Resident owners benefit by acquiring property management skills and experience as well as building rental income and equity in their property. Neighborhoods benefit from expanding their owner occupied housing base and the long term, vested interests in their communities.
Owners enter their units at street level, front and rear, while access to the second and third floor apartments is provided independently through separate, connecting corridors instead of the historically typical disruptive internal stair or the “after-market” external stair.
The row house type is used as the organization of vertical ownership, while the tenant access is provided by a shared apartment corridor.
The townhouse, consisting of the owner-occupied residences and two independent apartments above, responds to the typical rhythm and scale of a dense, urban residential street. The plan accepts the conventional urban townhouse configuration identified by dwellings fronting the street with private rear yards and garages facing a rear alley.
The third floor apartments alternate between forward and rear positions using the connecting corridor as a datum. The apartment corridors also connect to the common area circulation of an adjacent 3-story apartment building with whom they share common amenities.
Townhouse units include private yards and garages. The apartment building features independent entries and community green space.
Bedrooms of townhouse units occupy second floor. Second floor apartment units share common corridor and connect to apartment block. Townhouse units include studio above garage.
Third floor apartments of townhouse units alternate positions and feature rooftop terraces and gardens for each unit located across the corridor in order to maintain vertical separation.
The townhouses feature a consistent two-story brick base and a consistent use of standing seam metal cladding at the walls and roof, producing an iconic image of the detached, autonomous single family house in the context of a dense and diverse urban infill development.
This design is intended to operate in concert with a social entrepreneurship program to teach qualified neighborhood residents the fundamentals of apartment renting.
Manage development process, including property acquisition, entitlements, financing, valuation, marketing, design and construction. Determine hold/exit strategies.
Provide or assist in debt and equity funding for project through public and private sources.
Develop apprentice landlord educational process, identify and provide resources and mentor staffing. Manage and evaluate apprentice program participation and post-program performance.
Assume leasing and property management of owner-occupied townhouse rental units and apartment block rental units. Assist educational partner with transition of rental units to resident owners.
Site Selection
Project Planning
Preliminary Financing
Property Acquisition
Entitlements
Project Design
Marketing
Project Financing
Commitments
Preliminary Owner
Selections
Construction Marketing
Building Delivery
Individual Townhouse Financing Assistance
Final Owner Selections
Transition of Townhouse Ownership from Developer to Resident Townhouse Owner
Maintain Apartment Block Ownership
Conversion of Construction Loan to Permanent Loan
Apprenticeship Program, First Round
Transition Townhouse Ownership from Developer to Resident Owner
Manage Apartment Block
Maintain Apartment Block Ownership
Apprenticeship Program, Final Round
Apprenticeship Program, First Round Evaluation
Finalize Property Management Transition to Resident Townhouse Owners
Ongoing: Transition Apartment Block Ownership from Developer to Qualified Resident Owner
The ultimate goal is the expanded investment by these new landlords, community-wide, by purchasing, improving and leasing derelict properties and improving their own neighborhoods, one property at a time.
