Escondido Looks to Create Community

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From renters to homeowners: affordable housing hopes to relieve potential overcrowding
From renters to homeowners: affordable housing hopes to relieve potential overcrowding

RISMEDIA, December 19, 2006?(MCT)?The California city is looking to add neighborhoods one piece at a time.

It is working with Trinity Housing Group to create the Brotherton Square development to help low- to middle-income families switch from apartment renters to homeowners. The development contains manufactured homes, built off-site and assembled, instead of built at one time, and will help such families buy a home for less than the $500,000 price of many Escondido homes.

“We’re interested in creating a community,” said Steve Kuptz, president of Trinity Housing Group of Escondido. “We want to build houses where people can stay.”

Brotherton Square is one of five affordable housing projects being built throughout Escondido, such as the San Diego Habitat for Humanity’s $1.5 million Orangewood project on Sixth Avenue. The city hopes to create more communities away from downtown to relieve potential overcrowding.

The $10.5 million Brotherton Square project will consist of 22 houses on 1.4 acres when it is finished in May. It is on Brotherton Road, a few feet from Centre City Parkway, with houses ranging from about 1,150 square feet to around 1,400 square feet. The land used to be the location of the Penny Lodge, a place that one city official said was known for troublesome activities, such as drug deals and prostitution.

Potential Brotherton Square buyers must earn between $49,700 and about $102,000 to qualify. Once they are eligible and make a down payment of $5,000 to $10,000, they get to buy the homes for prices “in the low $300,000s,” according to developers. Kuptz of the Trinity Housing Group said the houses have a market value of about $500,000.

But the purchase price only applies as long as the buyer, or the buyer’s family, is living in the home. For example, if the $500,000 homes sell for $350,000, the buyers make monthly mortgage payments based on that purchase price. That’s because they are getting a “silent second” loan, or the difference between $350,000 and the $500,000 imputed sales value, that must be paid off when they sell.

The idea is to promote living in the homes longer term and possibly passing them on to future generations.

Beverly Peterka, Escondido’s housing division manager, said both the project and “silent second” loan option are good for the city.

“One of the (City) Council’s goals is to increase homeownership in the city,” she said. “This is one way to do that.”

The manufactured homes at Brotherton Square are created in a process similar to how children build with blocks. The first- and second-floor pieces of the houses are built in a facility in Corona in Riverside County. Then they are trucked to the Brotherton location.

Finally, the first-floor piece is set in place and the second-floor piece is placed right on top of it. Developers said that building style can cost 67 percent less than the standard approach of building each home individually, what the industry calls the “stick-and-brick” style.

Trinity’s Kuptz said the project is a great way for buyers to feel a bigger part of the city and the country.

“It will allow these people to achieve the American dream,” he said.

Copyright ? 2006, North County Times, Escondido, Calif.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

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