255 North Third Work Updates

Work is back on track in 255.  Here's IMPACT! Missions latest call for volunteers.  They are looking for workers this week on Tuesday and Thursday from 9-3, and this coming Saturday, Nov 1!

Hi Columbia team,

 

We can have greenshirts available Tuesday and Thursday this week form 9-3.  Please respond to this e-mail when/if you can work on either Tuesday or Thursday.  This coming Saturday will be a big work day.  We will have a lift in front of the property and we will be starting the front work with painting, and porch work.  This will be an important first step for this project since the work will be very visible to the neighborhood.  Please come out and help us start the Columbia third street improvement project.

 

It is important for IMPACT! Missions to have feedback on everybody's availability so we can plan for both resources and material delivery.

 

Again, if these dates are not working for the group as a whole, please provide feedback to days and times.

 

We are very excited to start working with you.

 

 Thank you,

 

Matthew Beakes
Executive Director - IMPACT! Missions
Address: 118 West Willow Road
Willow Street,  PA, 17584
Phone: (717) 823-7962
e-mail: mabeakes@impactcamps.org
http://www.impactcamps.org

If you can help, please email Matt with your availability as requested in his message.

September & October Updates

We haven’t been able to post any updates for a while, but that doesn’t mean things haven’t been happening!

The Columbia HSC met on October 8^th and heard updates about three different branches of the project.

North Third Street at Sunrise

First, the 3P Working Group talked about the progress they have made putting together a façade improvement program for North Third Street.  The 3P (Porches, Plantings, Paint) Group includes six residents from North Third and LHOP representatives.  The idea is to have LHOP money available in the form of low interest loans.  The loans can be used to repair and restore the facades of the houses along North Third. 

The HSC spent a long time discussing the nuts and bolts of the program and the best balance between loan rates, payback periods, and size of the loans.  We want to make sure the loans are useful to people, but also that money cycles back into the program within a reasonable period of time.  As loan payments are made to LHOP, the funds can be sent back into the community as more loans.   The 3P Working Group is taking this feedback and getting a final draft ready for the November HSC meeting.  A smaller group is also looking at how to create a pre-qualified contractors list.

Second,  it was shared with the group that Colonial Metals will be redoing the facades of the three houses it owns in the 500 block.  A long term goal of the group was also discussed.  The plan is to seek out grant funding in 2015 to do major streetscape improvements along North Third Street.  The project would be based on some of the initial suggestions worked up by Doug Phillips.  Also, a survey team from Millersville University will be in the 500 block soon, filling out the forms that were done earlier for the 200, 300, and 400 blocks.

Lastly, 255 North Third Street is gutted and nearly ready for interior work to begin.  A regular work schedule will be set up for Mondays, Thursdays, and every other Saturday.  Once exact times are known, the information will be posted on Facebook.

As always, if you have any questions or would like to help out, please let us know on Facebook or by sending an email to ColaHSC@gmail.com!

Upcoming Events

Press Event at 255 North Third St

Please join us tomorrow, Tuesday, August 26th, at 5:00 PM, 

on the front porch of 255 North Third Street.

Folks from the Lancaster Housing Opportunity Partnership and Columbia Borough 

will say a few words and we'll get this project officially kicked-off!

Save the Date - September 6th - Work Rally

Have you been following this project?  Are you interested in helping out?  Please plan to join us

September 6, 2014 

at 255 North Third Street

We'll have more details later, but for now, save the date!  

All skill levels welcome.

Calling All Hands!

The time has come for work to begin on 255 North Third Street!

Impact!Missions is looking for helping hands of all skill levels and also welcomes donations of materials.

We have a lot of good things planned for this house:

• a gorgeous face lift for the exterior
• overhauls of the heating/cooling, electrical, and plumbing systems 
• changes to the second floor's layout 
• a functioning bathroom
• a kitchen remodel
• and tons of smaller projects

Which comes out to a lot of added safety and comfort!

And of course, a great deal of demolition work is needed right up front.  If you like smashing things, this part is for you!

Volunteer labor and materials are what makes this project work, please consider helping in any way you are able.  It doesn't matter whether you are an experienced remodeler, a weekend warrior, or haven't picked up a paint brush before, we can put you to work.

If you are interested, please send an email to our volunteer coordinator Justin Evans at ColaHSC@gmail.com, and we'll be in touch with  more information!

July Updates!

We are happy to announce, along with our partners, the acquisition of 255 North Third Street!  Work will begin on the exterior sometime in the next 3-4 weeks.

 

Please keep your eyes and ears open in the coming weeks for opportunities to volunteer.  This is a big project and the house is going to need all of the help it can get!  

In other news, the neighborhood survey done by Millersville University is complete, and results have been shared with us.  Millersville staff and students talked to half of the households in the 200, 300, & 400 blocks of North Third Street.  This is a fantastic response rate and we have a lot of great information to work with now.

Members of the HSC have been discussing our project with Colonial Metals since the beginning, and it looks like tons of good things will spin out from this partnership, too!

Our next step is to kickstart a neighborhood group.  A big key to our success is getting more residents involved with this project and communicating with each other.  Because ultimately, we want to turn over what we're doing to a group based in North Third and begin again in a new part of Columbia!

Latest News - Resident Survey and More

The Lancaster County Housing Opportunity Partnership (LHOP) stressed to us early on that it was important to find out what the people that live in the area think, what kind of help or services they might find useful, and what they're worried about.

                                     

We were very fortunate to have Dr. Mary Glazier, Director of Millersville University's Center for Public Scholarship and Social Change, give us not just advice, but also professional manpower get the survey out to the residents.

Over the last several weeks, staff and students with the Polling and Research Office of the Center for Public Scholarship have been visiting as many residents as possible on North Third Street.  The response rate has been very good - nearly 40 surveys completed!  The surveyors will be out one or two more times, trying to make contact with people they haven't talked to yet.

Other updates:

• Closing is on schedule for 255 North Third Street.  Work may start as soon as July, and could be done by fall or early winter!

• We are looking at creating a logo for the group and a nice sign for the house as work progresses.

• The working group met with Doug Phillips and has a lot on its plate with design standards and a rehab program.

• The HSC will likely get some publicity from articles in the Lancaster news next weekend, and possibly the Merchandiser.

• We would like to have a part-time coordinator to reach out to and organize volunteers, donations, and materials.  Pastor Elizabeth is looking into ways to make this happen.

AND, as always, if you would like to be involved in any way, please let us know.  And like and share our Facebook page - let's get the word out!

Inside 255

This weekend, we visited 255 North Third and took a few photographs.  We wanted to get some solid "before" shots to compare to the "after," down the road.

There's no way around it; it's a big project and will take a lot of work.  But, there's also so much potential.

This is the main living area.  Like a few row homes on this block, it probably had floor length front windows originally.  At some point, they were exchanged for standard-sized replacement windows.  The fireplace surround was also redone at some point.

And here is an upstairs bedroom.  The exterior door leads to a balcony, the open door leads to the back staircase and two other bedrooms, and the quirky elevated door is a closet.

The sole bathroom in the house is in bad shape.  It hadn't functioned for a while even before the house was vacated.  The kitchen has a wall of cabinetry but otherwise is a blank slate.    

The kitchen and bath are a large chunk of the heavy duty work in the house, but all of the rooms need repairs small and large.  Deep cleaning, new flooring, patching, paint, the works.

255 is just a perfect example of the kind of property we were looking for, and despite the challenges, we're glad to have it, and to get the renovations underway in the next month or two!

Exciting news!

The Columbia Housing Steering Committee and the Lancaster Housing Opportunity Partnership are very happy to announce that we have a property under contract on North Third Street!

Meet 255 North Third.  

This house has a classic Columbia history.  It was likely built in the late 1800s, one of the town's many brick row homes & duplexes from that era.  A home to people who probably worked for the railroads or other local industry.  It's part of our historic district.

Over the years, maintenance issues have taken their toll, inside and out.  The home changed hands within one family multiple times.  For decades, the house was a center for noise issues and police calls.  Then, recently, the owner sold it to a California company, and rented it from them. Soon, the old owner was evicted, and a neighbor brought the property to our attention.   

LHOP was able to contact the new owner and negotiate a selling price.  The budget is going to be tight, and we may even lose a few dollars, but we consider it a worthwhile investment to get our project kick started.

             (This is the slide from Doug Phillips' presentation, showing suggested improvements to the facade of the house.)

Look for more updates on 255 North Third in the coming weeks and months.  Even better, if you would like to help out, please send an email or Facebook message and let us know. 

Get involved with the committee, volunteer for manual labor, or donate time and materials.  Every little bit helps and is tremendously appreciated!

The Historic North End

With an area chosen, our next step was to envision what the North End could look like, with time and effort.  Several residents from North Third Street joined the group, and at LHOP's suggestion, Columbia contracted with architect Doug Phillips to create a vision of what these blocks might look like in the future.

Doug created a wonderful set of images and 3D models based on the actual buildings on these blocks.  He gave us tons of possibilities to think about, and some ideas for bridging the larger challenges.

On March 18, the Housing Steering Committee and Doug held a public meeting to share this vision with the town.  It was a packed house!

Doug made two points that really struck home to us:

• As head architect for Charter Homes, Doug gets paid a LOT to design new homes that look like the ones we already have. Our historic character is a real asset, and we shouldn't lose sight of that.

• Most of the houses in these blocks are solid; they just need the "three Ps" - porches, plantings, and paint.  

You can see the 3D walkthroughs of the corridor on YouTube here.  There are some big dreams in there, but that's what visioning is all about!

The other thing that this meeting solidified is that this neighborhood has to stay affordable.  There are lots of home owners in the area who will benefit from some rise in property values, but it's important that selling prices stay within reach.  Affordable housing is hard to come by in this county, and we don't want to lose what we have.

Choosing an area

With some ideas about the types of things we wanted to do, our next step was to choose an area of town to focus on.

We looked at parcel maps, the zoning and comprehensive plan for the town, the boundaries of the historic district, and the location of other projects we knew were in the pipeline.  We knew we wanted an area with a lot of homes and a lot of historic character.  An area where we could make a difference.

The North Third Street corridor caught our eye early on.  It's a major gateway into town.  There are good things already happening in the area, especially the relocation of Rt. 441 starting this year.  There are also a lot of residential properties, many of which need some TLC.

We saw our chance to help set a neighborhood on a good trajectory.  Several residents of North Third Street joined our group, and we narrowed down our focus to the 200, 300, and 400 blocks to search for a home to renovate.

Mayor Lutz told us that this part of town has always been known as the North End.  From there, our plan to renovate a home began to grow into ways to support the entire neighborhood!  

Getting our feet wet with affordable housing

The very first job for the HSC was to decide what kind of project we were interested in for our partnership with LHOP.  There were a lot of different directions we could choose to take.

LHOP's project on Strawberry Street, in Lancaster City, quickly caught our interest.  On Strawberry Street, LHOP was able to purchase a condemned run-down property, completely renovate it, and then sell it at an affordable price to a first-time homebuyer.

Anyone who brings neglected historic properties up to code quickly figures out that the purchase price plus the renovation can easily be more than the expected final selling price of the house.  The bottom line, all too often, just doesn't work and the property is used until it falls apart, then it's abandoned and eventually demolished.

To see more pictures from 23 W Strawberry St click here.

On Strawberry Street, LHOP was able to solve this problem by working with IMPACT! Missions.  IMPACT! is able to do renovations for around half the cost of regular contractors because they use volunteer labor from local congregations and often get donated materials, as well.  Suddenly, the economics work.

We were particularly interested in this model because the investment - the purchase price of the house and the cost of renovations - comes back when the house is sold.  Then, another property can be purchased and the process starts over.  A revolving fund, essentially.  

The same $100,000 investment cycles through the community again and again, encouraging home ownership and neighborhood pride.  This is why we chose a similar approach in Columbia.

The answer to our next question - where? - is in the next post.  

Our history

Our story begins in in 2012, when the Lancaster Housing Opportunity Partnership received a grant from the Community Foundation to tackle affordable housing in Columbia and in Lancaster City.  LHOP matched the Community Foundation funds and announced that it would invest $100,000 in each community.

Because that's both a significant investment and a limited pot of money, LHOP asked Columbia to pull a committee together to help decide how to get the most 'bang for the buck.'  The Housing Steering Committee - the HSC - first met in August of 2013.

The committee has about a dozen people with many different areas of interest and expertise.  People who specialize in economic development, representatives of the faith-based and service communities, urban planners, borough residents, and borough administrators.  Local business people have also joined in the discussion.

That's the beginning; we've come a long way since then!