Two future INHS development projects received  $300,000 each from the Community Housing Development Fund recently, including 320 Buffalo in the City of Ithaca, and Village Grove in the Village of Trumansburg. The Community Housing Development Fund is a decade-long collaboration between Tompkins County, the City of Ithaca, and Cornell University who have pooled together resources to address our area’s affordable housing crisis.

INHS purchased the 320 Buffalo property, which was formerly the site of Immaculate Conception School, in January 2018 from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Rochester. The long-running school was closed at the end of the 2016-17 school year due to decreasing enrollment and increasing operating costs.

INHS’ intention is to redevelop the property into a vibrant mixed-use community, designed to address high-priority community needs. Plans include affordable rental housing serving a range of household sizes and income levels, restoration of the Convent building for Catholic Charities’ continued use, and space for nonprofit and community-based organizations that serve children and families. The project budget is $27,700,000.

Village Grove Apartments, part of the Crescent Way subdivision, is the proposed development of a residential mixed-use, mixed-income project on a nineteen-acre parcel of land located at 46 South Street in the Village of Trumansburg, New York. Village Grove will be set on fifteen individual lots and will consist of seventeen market rate for-sale units, ten affordable for-sale townhomes, six affordable rental townhomes, and forty-six rental apartments in a two-story elevator building. The project budget is $25,000,000.

“The Community Housing Fund has become a staple in providing funding to support affordable housing within the City of Ithaca and Tompkins County,” said INHS Executive Director Johanna Anderson. “The impact of this partnership is insurmountable, providing much-needed funding to expand access to affordable housing to those who need it most. In a region experiencing a housing crisis, this is exactly the type of support we need to combat this issue.”

Since the Community Housing Development Fund was initiated, INHS alone has received over $2.7 million in CDHF funding which has leveraged approximately $100 million in funding from New York State, private investors and financial institutions, and the federal government. That funding has gone toward the development or preservation of for sale, and rental housing in Tompkins County, and has resulted into an additional 259 rental units and 46 for-sale homes that have been added into INHS’ Community Housing Trust that provides permanently affordable homes for first-time home buyers.