Long waits for affordable homes in Blount County could shorten in the years ahead. Plans for new affordable and public housing developments are gaining momentum.
The staff of Maryville Housing Authority, Blount County’s public housing agency, have been working for months on a project to build as many as 104 affordable apartments behind the agency’s main offices on Atlantic Avenue. A separate project would see MHA place 11 new apartments on land behind the county health department, on McNabb.
Once constructed, the developments would represent the first new housing from MHA in decades. Both would sit on land the agency already owns.
Financing for the plans would come about in part through grants and also — for the project behind Atlantic Avenue — through the sale of tax credits.
The development proposals come amid lengthy waits for homes. MHA’s waitlists for public and affordable housing in Blount County have been closed since August 2023; the agency’s housing choice voucher waitlist shut over two years ago.
MHA Executive Director Julie Sharpe said she hopes to reopen some lists in the near future. But ambitious construction projects remain another tool in the authority’s kit.
104 units
Plans for the property by Maryville Housing’s offices are now in the pre-development stages, LHP Capital CEO Alvin Nance said in a meeting earlier this year. In a presentation to MHA’s board of directors, Nance discussed financing options for the project.
Nance, who formerly ran Knoxville’s Community Development Corporation and is now partnering with MHA on the new development, noted those options include applying for and selling low-income housing tax credits. MHA staff plan to seek out a tax credit that could amount to a subsidy of between about 30% and 35% of the total project cost.
“It’s getting more expensive to build affordable housing,” he noted. “If you’re not bringing in some additional subsidy that can offset your operating cost and offset your debt need, you’re really not building.”
The project cost is estimated at around $60 million, leaving what Nance described as a “gap” between the proceeds from the tax credit sales and the final outlay. The housing authority would still take on some debt for the project.
But there’s uncertainty about the size of the funding gap. Sharpe told The Daily Times in a Monday, June 10, phone interview that without knowing what price the credit sales will draw, it’s difficult to gauge precisely what costs will be left to cover.
And as credit pricing rises, Nance said to the board, the housing authority’s equity in the transaction will increase as well, reducing the difference. Housing choice vouchers will also be usable in the property, providing the authority with some new rental income.
Other means of possible support for the project include grants. Sharpe said Monday that she’s currently waiting to hear back about one grant that could support the project.
Maryville Housing staff have also previously referenced interest in potential funding from sources such as the National Housing Trust Fund and Federal Home Loan Bank, as well as consulting with local governments for support.
McNabb
The development process will likely require some flexibility, MHA board member Tom Taylor noted. “It’s never a linear process,” Taylor said. “That’s why we have to be fairly agile in approaching all these things.”
The property near the housing authority would be made up mostly of family-style apartments, with more than one bedroom in each unit. On McNabb, MHA staff hope to fill a need for smaller residences.
MHA is applying for grants to support the McNabb development, Sharpe has said.
If those applications are successful, “that project would move pretty quickly,” Sharpe said in May; it could begin in late 2025, she said.
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