News

Tax credit financing goes to Frances Road, not Oklawaha

By Bill Moss, Published: August 21, 2015

A Charlotte-based developer of affordable apartments has been awarded tax credit financing for its proposed 80-unit development on Frances Road in Hendersonville. Two other proposed developments, the 66-unit Oklawaha Village on North Main Street and the 72-unit Signal Ridge apartments on Signal Hill Road, did not receive authorization to finance construction through tax credits.

The tax credits are purchased by investors under a financing arrangement that requires all the apartments to be affordable to households earning 60 percent or less of the area median. Based on Henderson County’s medium income of $56,500, the tax-credit financed units would be available to a family of four with an income of $33,900 or less.
“We are planning on moving forward with it,” Hollis Fitch, the founder and owner of the Flatiron Group, said of the Cedar Terrace project. Construction should begin in the first quarter of next year with the development ready for occupancy in the spring of 2017, he said.
Founded in 2003, Flatiron Partners has developed 40 apartment complexes throughout Florida, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia representing more than $100 million in real estate development. It specializes in affordable housing projects.
The tax credit financing decision was a second setback for the Housing Assistance Corporation in as many years. The Henderson County Board of Commissioners last year turned down a rezoning the HAC needed to build 64 units of affordable housing on Pisgah Drive off U.S. 64 west of Laurel Park.
“While the Housing Assistance Corporation is disappointed that its Oklawaha Village Apartment development of 66 apartments was not awarded 2015 tax credits, we are very pleased that a development within the City of Hendersonville was awarded 2015 tax credits,” HAC said in a news relese. “This is excellent for Hendersonville and Henderson County and will provide 80 additional housing opportunities for our low, lower and workforce income families in critical need of them.”

HAC hopes to proceed with the Oklawaha Village Apartments as a mixed-income development setting aside 10 percent of the apartments for families earning 60 percent of the median income and 10 percent for families earning 80 percent of the median income. The remaining 80 percent would rent at market rates with a goal of attracting tenants at or below 120 percent of median income.