Delaware engineering office to be bulldozed for affordable housing
DELAWARE, Ohio (WCMH) — A Delaware building that previously housed the county’s engineering office could soon be demolished to make way for an affordable housing complex.
Columbus-based developer Homeport reintroduced plans this month to transform the site at 50 Channing St. into a residential complex with 44 rental properties and eight single-family homes without income restrictions. The 5.7-acre parcel has been sitting vacant since the Delaware engineering office moved in 2023 to the county’s new Byxbe Campus, also home to the area’s planning and development departments.
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Homeport’s new proposal calls for the empty engineering building to be bulldozed, rather than repurpose the structure as was planned in the developer’s original proposal submitted in 2020. The developer noted it is now opting for new construction after determining it’s not practical to redevelop the existing building.
“Staff is extremely supportive of this plan, as we were in 2020,” said Anna Kelsey, the county’s planning and zoning administrator, during a June 5 planning commission meeting. “It provides much-needed housing for the city of Delaware for folks of mixed incomes. A mixed-residential development which has a variety of housing types is an extremely sustainable form of development.”
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Twenty-four apartments will be built in one, three-story building, while 20 two-story townhomes will be constructed across three buildings. The proposal also outlines that each of the right single-family homes will have their own driveway and yard, and there will be 88 parking spaces for rental tenants. A 20-foot green space will be maintained on the southeast corner of the site to serve as a buffer to the existing neighborhood to the east.
Kelsey Fox, the director of housing and community solutions for United Way of Delaware County, spoke in support of Homeport’s proposal during the June 5 meeting and said the city is in need of additional affordable housing.
“We know that we have over 14,500 households in Delaware that are cost-burdened, meaning they spend more than 30% of their income on their housing needs,” Fox said. “Having additional options and resources is critical to the ability for workers and families that are already here in the community to be able to stay.”
Homeport will return to the planning commission for additional review before the proposal moves on to city council for a vote.
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T&R Properties’ 60-acre complex comes as several other developments take shape in Delaware. The commission approved in May a proposal to construct the last three of six phases making up Winterbrooke Place, a sprawling subdivision built by M/I Homes, Rockford Homes and Arlington Builders. Plans call for the development’s final three phases to include 84 lots, increasing the subdivision’s total footprint to about 260 homes.
Maronda Homes is building 655 homes as part of a residential and commercial development named “Donovan Farms” on a 114-acre site next to Boulder Park, east of South Section Line Road and west of Houk Road. Fincon Bowtown is developing 132 for-sale townhomes across a 16.8-acre site home to city-owned farmland, located north of Bowtown Road and west of the Village Gate Apartments complex.
Romanelli and Hughes is constructing 97 single-family homes to continue building out the 473-acre Terra Alta development north of Braumiller Road and west of Berlin Station Road. The plan calls for 43 homes to be built on 27.2 acres and 54 homes on 21.2 acres.
Further, Addison Rutherford is moving forward with plans to expand its central Ohio footprint by building more than 72 single-family homes across 22 vacant acres. The developer is one of several development companies owned by Jason Friedman — a prolific real estate developer also constructing Delaware’s sprawling 273-acre Addison Farms development.
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