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Athens is looking at parcels in the East neighborhood to develop affordable homes

By: David Forster
Posted on: Tuesday, November 25, 2025

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ATHENS, Ohio (WOUB) — The city of Athens has identified two parcels in the East neighborhood where it hopes to build affordable homes using seed money from the state.

The two parcels are adjoining and are located along Hudson Avenue where it dead ends. One is owned by the city and is used for storage. The other is behind the Red Cross building and is owned by the organization.

Under the city’s plan, a developer would buy the Red Cross parcel and the city would technically own it while the homes are being built.

Andy Stone, the city’s service-safety director, told the City Council at Monday night’s meeting that it may be possible to fit up to eight homes on the two parcels.

The developer would pay to build the homes and then get reimbursed from the city through a $2 million grant from the state’s Welcome Home Ohio program.

The city would then sell the homes at below market value to people whose incomes are below a certain level. Money from the sales could then be used to build more affordable housing.

Meanwhile, the buyers could not turn around and rent the homes or sell them for a higher price. Under the terms of the program, they must live in them for a certain number of years before they can sell.

“This gives us an opportunity to allow eight individuals or families to buy very, very attractive, well-built homes far below market price and to have instant equity,” said Councilmember Alan Swank. “What we’re doing is putting attractive affordable housing in a community setting in a well-established neighborhood.”

Efforts to build affordable housing in Athens, and apartment complexes in particular, have run into significant opposition from neighbors.

Stone said this project is different.

“This is not a LIHTC project, this is not a HUD project, this is not ‘those people’ that we so often have people come before this body or other bodies and complain about being near them,” he said. “These are people that are going to own their own home and care about it and live in the house that they own. They just might not make as much money as the people next door.”

LIHTC is a federal program that provides developers with tax credits to build affordable apartment units. HUD is the federal Housing and Urban Development agency, which among other things helps subsidize rents for low-income people.

Very little single-family housing is getting built in Athens, especially at prices that people earning the median wage can afford. The reasons for this are complex and the problem is national in scope. Stone said the bottom line is that the city is having to step in and find ways to incentivize housing development.

“I never in a million years thought I would be in the housing business,” he said. “When I started with the city, housing was something that just happened. … It just happened on its own because the market was there to support it, and conditions right now are not such that houses are getting built in Athens to be able to accommodate homebuyers. It’s simply cost prohibitive both for builders and for the buyers.”