News
Athens City Council gave the greenlight for a multifamily housing project to move forward
By: Charlie Ihlenfeld
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ATHENS, Ohio (Statehouse News Bureau) — Athens City Council voted Monday to rezone property concentrated around 111 Hooper St. for multifamily housing. This allows for the property to be turned into an apartment complex.
Nearby residents upset by the proposed rezoning spoke out against it at previous council meetings. Diana Marvel, a resident on nearby Nottingham Drive, voiced her concerns to the council via email just before Monday night’s meeting.
Marvel, who recently purchased a home in the area, asked the council to reconsider. “[M]y neighbors and I have intentionally purchased homes in an area zoned for single-family housing and pay taxes to the city in an area zoned for single-family housing,” she wrote.
Marvel called the change “more than a breach of contract” and “unethical.” She suggested the council use property already zoned R-3 to construct multifamily housing units.
Athens, like much of the country, is mired in an affordability crisis. According to a study published by Ohio University’s Voinovich School, Athens has a housing deficit of 4,875 units. This crisis is felt most acutely by low-income Athenians.
Athens County has 3,515 households designated as “extremely low income.” For one person, that is $17,300 annual income, and for a household of five, it’s $36,580. For those 3,515 households, there are 1,965 affordable units.
The Hooper Street property is close to another multifamily development, Monticello Village. Those apartments opened in 1969 and are less than a minute away from the future Hooper Street development.
Marvel said this is more reason for the project to be halted, as the street is already at its “limit” for traffic, infrastructure, noise and litter.
If the project does go forward, Athens would have a Title 41 review process to verify whether the area is at its limit for traffic. The Title 41 process would determine the impact from the entry and exit of vehicles from Hooper Road. The review would require a look into many of the residents’ concerns.
Marvel and other residents are also concerned about the potential environmental impact of the development on nearby woods. The land is not designated by the city as an official green space, but it is heavily wooded.
The project will require several stages of approval from the Ohio Housing Finance Agency to receive a Low-Income Housing Tax Credit or LIHTC. If the project is greenlit by OHFA, the second step of the application process would begin in October. With another approval, the final step in the application process would be in late January 2026. If Hill Tide were to clear all three of the application hurdles, it plans to begin construction toward the end of 2026.