Here's some good news for a change with regards to housing the homeless in Orlando.
A 1-lot minor plat for the 13.1 acres that "Village on Mercy," an affordable housing project, will be built on goes before City Council for final approval Monday July 9th.
Ability Housing, a non-profit housing developer based in Jacksonville, is using a $5 million state apartment incentive loan and a $21 million state tax credit allocation to build Village on Mercy. The City of Orlando sold them the land for $1.27 million. It will contain 166 affordable housing units, half of which will go to formerly homeless individuals. The Village is slated to take 18 months to build.
Village on Mercy will be located within the Mercy Drive Neighborhood at 1740, 1742,1770 Mercy Drive. More than 45% of the households in the Mercy Drive area are below poverty income, with a median household income of $20,586. Within the past year, two-thirds of the single family properties in the area have been under some form of code enforcement.
In early 2015, the City of Orlando acquired multiple foreclosed multi-family properties from FannieMae in the Mercy Drive neighborhood. The City’s intent was to sell the redevelopment sites to developers interested in establishing mixed-income, affordable housing communities that would complement the surrounding neighborhoods. At time of purchase, these unoccupied substandard properties included the 3.28-acre Peppertree Shores multifamily site, the 2.29-acre Peppertree Circle multi-family site, and the combined 12.83-acre Bordeaux I-II/Lakeside Village multifamily site. All of these properties are on the west side, excluding Peppertree Circle. Since then, all properties have been cleared and prepared for development.
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