Numerous housing developments aimed at helping to close the gap in Bloomington-Normal’s ongoing housing shortage have failed to get off the ground in recent years, but Central Illinois property management company Christian County Development Corporation (CCDC) and Georgia-based developer Domera Development LLC are defying the odds.
The duo has almost finished construction on a 48-unit property in South Bloomington — called The Villas at Prairie Vista — and a 30-unit property in Heyworth called Prairie View at Heyworth. Prairie Vista will consist of 2 and 3-bedroom duplexes, while Prairie View will consist of 2 and 3-bedroom single-family homes.
All the units will also be low-income housing — which McLean County lacks — and CCDC will even accept Section 8 vouchers. (A recent report from the McLean County Regional Planning Commission advocates for added low-income housing in the area.)
CCDC Chief Executive Office Meggann Bell said she’s not familiar enough with the area to know why the Villas at Prairie Vista overcame seemingly insurmountable odds, but CCDC has a good track record in getting Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) projects to the finish line.
“I don't know if we call it just persistence, whatever it may be, but all of our projects that we build and we manage have been very successful long term,” she said.
All CCDC’s 28 other sites across Central and Southern Illinois are low-income housing, according to the locations listed on its website.
Funding
LIHTCs in Illinois are granted by the Illinois Housing Development Authority (IHDA). These allow for private developers to partially fund projects, cutting construction costs so that rates remain low when they go on the market. A portion of units are also required to be low-income for the first 15 years of existence when using state tax credits.
Nathan Joseph, who owns Domera, said the LIHTC is key to how the Prairie Vista and Prairie View came to fruition. They were able to create new, modern units without hiking up rental prices.
“That’s really what makes this go as an affordable development is being able to rent something nice,” he said. “Because there’s existing housing that’s in McLean County that is rented at similar rates, but a lot of it’s bad. I mean, it’s just old and bad and tired.”
CCDC submitted its application alongside Domera for the Prairie projects back in 2020, and they were approved shortly after.
That year, Joseph said Bloomington was ranked as one of the IHDA Opportunity Areas, so choosing to build there resulted in a higher entry score in the competitive process based on points.
“They’ll assign certain points to different cities, different counties, different census tracts based on, you know, different metrics within those census tracts: income levels, poverty, health, access to certain amenities,” he explained.
However, Bloomington no longer ranks quite as high.
“Right now it scores still pretty well, but for it to score really well something that the municipalities can do is… there's these pots of money that if they put them toward development, they have financing like this or some other kind of financing could they leverage it,” Joseph said.
Joseph pointed out that Bloomington could use its Community Block Development Grant (CDBG) funds for infrastructure purposes, or it could establish a Tax Increment Financing (TIF) district, dedicating a portion of new tax revenue generated to the revitalization of that area.
In lieu of an IHDA Opportunity Area label, this is what Heyworth had to do to get its LIHTC award.
Joseph said Domera worked alongside village officials to prove to IHDA that Heyworth was making efforts to renovate and demolish abandoned buildings and using the TIF district model.
“IHDA said, ‘Oh, yeah, you’re right. There is a lot of opportunity here, because of the investment efforts of the village,’” he said.
Delays
Four years later, the projects are still only almost done.
Joseph called it “a stupid long time” to work on a project, but he didn’t fault the contractors. Instead, he said COVID-19, increasing costs of building and weather delays have all pushed the project into 2024.
Bloomington and Heyworth have both been supportive partners to work with. He called Heyworth “probably one of the best communities” he has worked with, and he said Bloomington’s City Council was widely supportive of the efforts.
Joseph said they also didn’t encounter any NIMBYism, or Not In My Backyard. [This has been an issue at least in Bloomington in the past.]
“No pitchforks and torches coming out to community meetings and trying to stop the development or not getting zoning approved,” he said.
Bell said construction in Heyworth could finish as early as this month and Bloomington as early as two months from now. If that doesn’t happen, she said she’d like construction to finish before the end of the year, so people can start moving into the units.
“We have a lot of anxious applicants and we're ready to get these leased,” she said
Ameren will need to hook up utilities at both sites as well, Joseph said, before anyone can move in.
The Villas at Prairie Vista also need some city approvals, including an occupancy certificate from the city.
Applications rolling in
Meanwhile, applications are open in Heyworth, and Bell said CCDC is sifting through them. In Bloomington, only pre-applications are out, but she said there were already over 100 applicants last week alone.
“The word is starting to get out,” she said.
Bell estimates 50%-60% of people will go through to the next stage of formal applications, but neither site is move-in ready.
Pricing for 2-bedrooms at Prairie View is $700, while 3-bedrooms will be $800. Bell said Bloomington rates will be slightly higher, though they haven’t finalized any numbers yet. Utilities are not included in the price and will be billed to tenants directly.
Income restrictions are based on the size of each family or household looking to rent. For example, incomes at both sites for an individual is capped at $45,960, and for a four-person household, the cap is $65,640, according to CCDC.
