By Peter Biello & Catherine M. Welch
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/whqr/local-whqr-635200.mp3
Wilmington, NC – On a hot summer day in Navassa, a construction crews lays the foundation of a new sidewalk in Lena Springs Estates housing development. On one side of the main road, the skeletons of houses wait to be fleshed out. Resident Keith Nowell squints at the bright sunlight as he takes out the trash. He moved in just a few months ago.
"Basically anything in New Hanover was way out of our price range and wasn't what we were looking for," says Nowell. "So we found what we were looking for in a new neighborhood and I'm a lot closer to work."
As a truck driver and the sole wage earner, Nowell jumped on the opportunity to own a home.
"We actually just had come out to look at them and there was a guy out here who had locked up these houses that he was selling, and he showed it to us and we just jumped on it real quick."
Nowell is one of the first residents in Lena Springs Estates. Michael Otelsburg with Century 21 Real Estate is the developer.
"The prices start at $133,900 and they go up to $169,000," says Otelsburg. "The difference in price has to do with size. All these prices fit within the low to moderate income level, according to the local data."
Local data say the average selling price of existing homes was over $300,000 last year. Ask Otelsburg how he makes money, and he'll say he sells large numbers of smaller homes as opposed to small numbers of larger homes. Ask him why he's doing it this way and he'll say it's less risky. But why not take the risk?
"Those first 25 lots were required to be affordable housing," says Resea Willis with Brunswick's Countywide Development Corporation.
She says the land underneath Lena Springs Estates was reserved for Hurricane Floyd victims. The North Carolina General Baptist Association received a grant of more than half a million dollars to build houses for displaced victims. They installed sewer and water lines, a pump station, and part of what is now Forest Hills Drive. That was 1999. Unable to complete the development, they sold the land at a discount to Otelsburg with that one condition.
"It's easy to do the first 25," says Willis. "My question is, what's going to happen to the second 25. Are they going to be affordable? Or are they going to be in 170-200-thousand dollar range. Let's wait and see."
So far Otelsburg says he's sold to 35 working families much to the delight of Navassa Mayor Eulis Willis. From where he stands outside Town Hall, Willis can see the entrance of Lena Springs Estates.
"In order for the town to keep on growing and prospering, we need new blood, and that's a new influx of people, hopefully for better ideas, brighter ideas."
Historically black and rural, Navassa first found fortune in its proximity to Wilmington. Railroad tracks running through the town connected Wilmington to Charlotte and South Carolina. Once the tracks were in place, 1869 a new factory began making fertilizer from guano shipped from Navassa Island. The Navassa Guano Factory gave the town its name in 1885. Today its population sits at about 1600.
Back at Lena Springs, Otelsburg says he wants the owners of the house to actually live here.
"We are only selling to owner occupants, voluntarily," Otelsburg says. "We feel like we're offering these at these prices, and we don't want people to buy this and sell to others at a higher price and put more stress on them."
Otelsburg says so far they've successfully kept investors out a hypocritical move, he says, since he owns investment property. But he says he feels justified.
"We feel like we just want to put them in the hands of the people who can really change their life, not just make them a dollar more."
Otelsburg says crews can build a house from scratch in less than four months. All 180 homes are scheduled for completion in less than three years. He says he'd like to build more housing developments like Lena Springs Estates, but it all depends on the price of the land.
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