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!