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City eyes cheap single home plan
Ponds, other property can become ‘waterfront sites’ for workforce kit homes
By THOMAS MICHALSKI
Article published on Friday, July 27, 2007
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![[Image]](/content_images/072707_par-01.jpg) |
| This so-called “Katrina Cottage” features 2 bedrooms, 1 bath, a living room, kitchen and porch. |
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PINELLAS PARK – City officials are looking at plans to possibly use high maintenance retention pond properties for workforce housing, a project that would partner the city and private contractors.
The pond properties would in essence create “waterfront homes” in a city landlocked in the middle of Pinellas County.
Dozens of retention ponds are scattered throughout the city. They are high maintenance properties that require regular maintenance such as water treatment and mowing grass.
Most were created during construction projects and are generally used to collect water runoff during storms.
Targeted also are other city-owned properties that have little or no resale value due to location. The idea is to build 2-bedroom so-called “Katrina Cottages” for under $100,000 each, including the land. The units would be rented and offered for sale.
The cottages are small. The largest bedroom is only 8’ x 12.6’ and the smallest is approximately 8’ x 8’. They include 1 bathroom, a living room, kitchen and front porch.
Kit houses are nothing new. Starting in 1908 Sears offered them from $495 to $4,115, or about $9,800 to $81,000 in today’s dollars.
They arrived in about 30,000 pieces in two boxcars. Along with the kit came a 75-page instruction manual. By 1911 Sears was offering mortgages and in 1915 the kits featured pre-cut fitted and numbered lumber.
Sears sold over 100,000 houses in 447 styles between 1908 and 1940. All the company’s records pertaining to house sales were destroyed in the 1940s. One of the Sears homes, dubbed the Brennan House after an early local pioneer, still exists here on 76th Avenue.
Councilman Rick Butler said he is in “talking stages” with an unidentified local contractor who has indicated interest in building Katrina-like homes for speculation. Butler said the homes could be constructed for less money that it takes for a standard building.
Michael Gustafson, city manager, would not speculate on the possibility of launching such a project.
“There is a need for workforce housing,” Gustafson said. “I can’t say for sure that the city would get involved in such a project until I see plans, and we’re a long way from that stage.”
Butler, long an advocate of revitalizing the old business district around Park Station, said the idea of pre-fabricated inexpensive housing is making a full circle. Early ones, he said, still exist in many Florida cities.
“Functionality is what it’s all about,” Butler said. “Inexpensive 2, 3 and even 4 and 5-bedroom homes can be built today at budget prices.”
Besides city property, Butler would like to see the United Cottage Corp. houses near Park Station become part of a workforce housing program. The cottages, some dating back to the early 1940s, are for the most part single room affairs.
At least one that exists today was built around a travel trailer.
Butler said some investors indicated interest in turning the cottages into a district of arts and craft stores, restaurants and related businesses. Some cottages are owned and others are rental units.
Butler said modern families are faced with many challenges, including children that aren’t leaving home because they can’t afford to make it on their own.
“Income is not keeping up with the cost of housing and living in general,” Butler said. “The need for good, inexpensive housing is greater than most people think.”
Butler believes that a partnership between the city and contractors might happen. The city could get rid of its substandard properties while making way for workforce housing.
“We are not talking about huge developments of these houses,” Butler said. “We’re looking at two or three homes on a pond property, and maybe more on larger tracts of land.”
Butler would like to see the area around Park Station developed into homes and businesses. It’s where the original business district once stood.
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Article published on Friday, July 27, 2007
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