Before Freeda Parson moved into her new house in a Hilltop neighborhood a year ago, her family tried to talk her out of it.

The neighborhood was too dangerous, they told her.

But she replied that there’s no such thing as a bad neighborhood.

You have bad people, bad neighbors, the 67-year-old Parson told them.

If you treat people right, she said, they’ll treat you right.

But her sunny outlook wasn’t the sole reason she moved to the neighborhood off Sullivant Avenue.

She lives on Lechner Avenue, a street with three new houses where city tax breaks mean owners of new homes don’t have to pay property taxes for 15 years.

In the past five years, 97 homes have been built or rehabilitated under the tax-abatement program started by Mayor Michael B. Coleman. But attracting for-profit developers has been a challenge because even with the breaks, building in poor neighborhoods carries significant risk.

Habitat for Humanity built Parson’s house.

The new homes have generated $10.3 million in investment in five designated areas, plus a cluster of 10 homes along Gibbard Avenue and Bliss Street, according to city documents. An additional 46 homes are in the process of being approved for abatements, Coleman said Friday.

Parson said there’s no way she could have afforded to move into her home without the abatement.

“Not on a fixed income,” the retired Sears worker said.

But none of the tidy houses along Lechner near Sullivant was built by for-profit developers.

And that’s part of the story, too.

The developers are for the most part nonprofit groups, such as the Columbus Urban Growth Corp. and the Columbus Housing Partnership.

Inner-city development is hard. Old industrial sites need to be cleaned up. Potential homebuyers must be convinced that they’ll be safe. Commercial builders want to avoid costly risks.

Just three years after announcing splashy plans to build a neighborhood of 106 entry-level homes on the Hilltop, Dominion Homes bowed out of the project in January.

The homebuilder’s cost to clean up the site was more than anticipated after crews found old foundations and rubble, said Tom Hart, a Dominion vice president.

It is difficult to persuade a for-profit developer to build in the inner city because the cost forces the builder to list prices higher than the market can bear, said Stephen Torsell, executive director of Homes on the Hill.

The city is working hard to attract more for-profit developers, Coleman said. Nonprofit developer MiraCit Development Corp. is working with Sovereign Homes to build 28 energy-efficient “green” homes in one of the abatement areas off Woodland Avenue on the North Side.

Coleman said he hopes that and the other homes show for-profit developers there’s a market in the central city. He pointed to the Columbus/Franklin County Affordable Housing Trust and his $25 million Home Again program to rid the city of blighted houses and create livable homes.

“It all fits together,” he said.

The city created two new tax-incentive areas this year: In Weinland Park north of Downtown, Campus Partners plans to build 500 condominiums and apartments. In Franklinton, a Los Angeles developer wants to build 130 condominiums and apartments at the crumbling B&T Metals site along W. Town Street.

The city chooses areas facing declining population, declining or unstable school enrollment, and a lot of vacant land and substandard housing, said Audrey Owens, city economic-development supervisor.

The largest concentration of homes built under the program is in an area north of Broad Street on the Near East Side. The Columbus Housing Partnership has sold seven new homes on N. 21st Street and is building more.

The for-profit development that former heavyweight boxing champion James “Buster” Douglas says he will build along E. Main Street is in one of the five districts.

His partner, Joseph Recchie of National Community Builders, said the abatements played a part in his decision to get involved. They won’t help him, but they’ll be attractive to potential buyers.

Up the street from a cluster of new tax-abated homes on the Hilltop, Cecil Mickens Sr. of 329 Lechner Ave. said the new homes make the worn-looking neighborhood look a little better.

“It’s helped,” Mickens said.

Jim Proctor, who has lived on N. 21st Street for 30 years, said the Columbus Housing Partnership needs to build more new homes on his street. He points across a vacant lot to the broken windows of a vacant brick duplex. Kids keep breaking them out.

“One family at a time,” the Columbus Housing Partnership’s Amy Klaben said.

Or one person who is convinced she made the right decision.

“I feel really safe in this neighborhood,” Parson said.

Bad weather in February hampers home showings
By Marilyn Miller
Beacon Journal business writer
Summit County housing sales were down by 12 percent during the first quarter of the year compared to a year ago, according to Akron Area Board of Realtors President Tom Campensa.

Sales were down across the board throughout Ohio, he said after meeting with Realtor presidents from Columbus, Cincinnati, Dayton and other Ohio cities in his role as a director of the Ohio Association of Realtors.

“Northern Ohio took a bigger hit than Southern Ohio,” said Terry Hankner of Comey & Shepherd in Cincinnati. “Generally, Ohio is one of those places that doesn’t have fantastic climbs or horrible lows compared to the rest of the country.”

Bad weather in February prevented people from visiting homes for sale, further weakening March closings, Campensa said.

Sales for March were down 28 percent from the previous year. In 2006, 538 homes were sold, compared with 384 sold in 2007.

“Although sales are down, it is still a lucrative market,” Campensa said.

Campensa said that in Summit County, there was a 15 percent decrease in listings in the first quarter. Total listings were 1,070, compared with 1,263 last year.

“There was a bigger inventory of houses on the market and a better feeling among people about the economy,” Campensa said. “With foreclosures up, many people are fearful to take action and are staying where they are.”

In Stark County, there were more homes on the market in March (2,729) than in the previous year (2,515). That is an increase of 8.5 percent. The average time a house was on the market in March was 90 days, but only 83 days last year during the same time frame.

There were 334 homes sold in March 2007 in Stark County, down 4 percent from the 348 in March 2006.

Figures for the three-month quarter of 2006 in Stark County were not available. Individually by month, sales in Stark County have totaled 243 homes sold in January, 253 in February and 334 in March.

The average price of a home in Stark County in March was $124,753, down less than 1 percent from $125,668 in March 2006.

Realtors say it is still a buyer’s market and because there are some good buys out there, some homes sell quickly.

“I urge buyers if they are going to buy and find the house they really want, they have to make a decision,” Campensa said. “I showed 35 homes to a first-time buyer… by the time he made up his mind, five or 10 of them had already sold.”

Campensa said the housing market is moving in the right direction.

“Ohio is suffering from too much inventory right now, but it will catch up,” Hankner said. “There is an increase in the number of showings of properties. There is a lot to choose from, but people have incredible choices and good rates right now.”