Columbia’s Edisto Court neighborhood is revitalizing. This non-profit developer wants to keep it affordable.
Developers expect to break ground this month on a new affordable housing complex that will add 29 townhomes to the Edisto Court neighborhood.
Headed by Greenville-based non-profit, Homes of Hope, along with the Columbia Development Corp and the City of Columbia, the Edisto Place project is part of an effort to preserve affordable housing in neighborhoods that are rapidly revitalizing.
Eight of the homes will be reserved for families that make between 50% and 60% of the area median income — around $71,000, according to a database compiled by the Federal National Mortgage Association. Another eight homes will be for families making 60% to 80% and the remaining 13 homes will be for families making between 80% and 100%.
Rent will be based on income and there will be opportunities for home ownership in the future.
“Families in that space are generally working families,” said Don Oglesby, president and CEO of Homes of Hope. “They have income that’s adequate to pay a fair price but they’re not finding those fair prices in the market.”
Edisto Court lies between Rosewood Drive and Shop Road, just a few blocks from the Jim Hamilton-LB Owens airport and an asphalt plant. In the past, the area was home to a nuclear laundry and a fertilizer plant, both of which contributed to lead and arsenic contamination in the soil. In response to residents’ complaints, the federal Environmental Protection Agency spent $500,000 to clean up the area at the end of 2012.
When the Columbia Development Corp. began buying land in Edisto Court nearly a decade ago, Executive Director Fred Delk said the neighborhood was in severe disrepair.
“There was a lot of troubled rental housing, a lot of condemned housing,” he said. “There was a brand new park, Edisto Discovery Park, yet mothers in the neighborhood wouldn’t let their 12-year-olds walk to the park alone because it was unsafe.”
Since then, Delk said the neighborhood has experienced a resurgence thanks in part to new businesses like City Roots urban farm and Hunter-Gatherer Brewery/Taproom opening nearby as well as the redevelopment of the Rosewood Hills public housing project, which replaced the former Hendley Homes.
Although this growth could create new opportunities for longtime residents, Columbia City Council member Will Brennan, whose district includes Edisto Court, said it could also end up displacing them.
“Across the city, many neighborhoods that used to be geared toward young professionals and families are now going to students and others who are willing to pay a higher premium for rent,” he said.
Oglesby said his organization specifically targets areas experiencing gentrification, a term that describes when more affluent people move into an existing neighborhood and change its character. This can lead to lower crime rates and improvements to infrastructure, but it can also end up pricing out people who are originally from the neighborhood as the cost of housing increases.
One way Homes of Hope plans to address this is by giving preference to current and former Edisto Court residents who apply for a spot in the new development.
“We want to make sure that we are housing people that are invested and have a real interest in the success in the neighborhood,” Oglesby said. “We also want to be very thoughtful about things like design and density, so those things are always approved by the neighborhood first.”
Bessie Watson, the former president of the Edisto Court Community Council, praised Homes of Hope for communicating its plans to neighborhood residents and for accepting their feedback.
“Of course you will always have some people that have reservations when something new is coming into the neighborhood, but I think for the most part people embraced the idea,” she said. “This is going to be a great asset for our community.”
The total cost of the project is around $5.3 million. The Columbia Development Corp sold Homes of Hope 2.7 acres on Wiley Street between South Edisto Avenue and Superior Street for $410,000, to be paid back in five years. Delk said he commissioned environmental assessments on the land and they showed the soil was free of any toxins.
The City of Columbia provided an additional $602,000 in various loans and grants from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development. Homes of Hope will invest $400,000 into the project. The rest will come from various private funding sources.
Oglesby said that they are still waiting to get approval on the building permit but if all goes as planned, construction could be completed by July 2021.
Editor’s Note: A previous version of this story included the wrong last name for Bessie Watson.
This story was originally published July 9, 2020 at 4:16 PM.
