Several townships have committed financial support to assist efforts to preserve dozens of income-restricted affordable rental homes in the Centre Region.
Patton Township on Wednesday became the third municipality to provide funding for a local developer’s work to get state affordable housing momey for the acquisition of Sylvan View Estate, a development of 49 single-family homes near Blue Course Drive in Ferguson Township that could otherwise be sold and converted to market-rate units or razed for the construction a new market-rate development.
The township Board of Supervisors agreed to allow the Centre County Housing and Land Trust to reallocate the $25,000 in American Rescue Plan Act funds the township previously contributed in 2023 to the Sylvan View Estate project.
Ferguson Township already committed $150,000 and College Township pledged $50,000, both from workforce housing funds, to aid the effort.
Sylvan View Estate was constructed in the 1990s using Low Income Housing Tax Credits. A requirement of the tax credits is that the properties be maintained as income- and rent-restricted based on area median income formulas for 30 years.
That 30-year affordability period ended on Dec. 31, 2024, and the partnership that owns the development is looking to sell it, CCHLT executive director Missy Schoonover said.
Local real estate developer Ara Kervadjian, who has developed multiple low-income housing projects in Centre County, has expressed interest and believes he can leverage funds from the Pennsylvania Housing Affordability and Rehabilitation Enhancement (PHARE) Fund to acquire and rehab the homes with the requirement that they remain affordable for 30 more years. The CCHLT will own the land, ensuring that the affordability requirement remains in place for an additional 99 years, Schoonover said on Wednesday.
Because of the complex and expensive application process, Kervadjian approached the CCHLT about securing $300,000 in local funding to help with soft costs associated with
pulling together the necessary materials. The CCHLT has in turn brought the request to its partner municipalities in the Centre Region, and Patton Township Manager Amy Farkas said the trust will also request support from Centre County.
Patton Township’s contribution was originally allocated to CCHLT for the future acquisition of a home or lot within the township to be designated as affordable housing. Supervisor Sultan Magruder said he would prefer the money be used to advance affordable housing within Patton Township, but if the CCHLT did not believe it would be able to acquire a property within the next several years, it would make sense to support the Sylvan View Estate initiative.
Schoonover said CCHLT has 14 affordable properties in Patton Township and “would love to add another,” but can’t be sure when that would occur.
“One of the challenges that we have is because we have such limited funds, sometimes when we try to get those properties we are quickly outbid by another buyer or an investor… because of the homes that we’re trying to purchase,” Schoonover said. “So in no terms would I be saying we don’t want to continue growing our portfolio in Patton Township… but we just aren’t sure when we’re going to be able to have that crystal ball show us when we will be able to find that property.”
The trust also believed the Sylvan View project could be a regional initiative because “people do move a lot within the municipalities of the Centre Region,” Schoonover added.
“If individuals perhaps live in Ferguson, they work in Patton. They work in Patton, they live in College,” she said. “Just a way to make make things a little easier so that we don’t lose 49 homes.
“And then perhaps this would spark the passion in another owner to say, ‘Well, I would like to provide that housing within another municipality,’ because there are some properties throughout the Centre Region that will be coming out of this LIHTC protection.”
Multiple local properties built with Low Income Housing Tax Credits have had their affordability requirements end in recent years. For Sylvan View Estate, new leases are being adjusted to market rate, and several tenants have been forced to move. (Another LIHTC affordability requirement that ended at the same time is Addison Court in State College, which, coincidentally, a development firm led by Kervadjian has proposed replacing with a student apartment building.)
About 1,700 more units in the region will lose their affordability protection within the next five years, Schoonover said.
“So, we’re looking at today’s problem of these 49 that have already come off, and then we’re also looking ahead to how can we how can we preserve some of those,” she said.
Sylvan View Estate also was developed during a brief window when the PHFA allowed Low Income Housing Tax Credits to be used for single-family homes. Since then it has only been available for multi-family units.
That makes the more than four-dozen homes in Sylvan View Estate a “unicorn” in the affordable housing market, Schoonover told the Ferguson Township Board of Supervisors in November.
Schoonover said at the time that the current owner would prefer to sell to an investor who will maintain Sylvan View as affordable housing, but there is no requirement that they do so.
“It’s a regional challenge,” Patton Township Board of Supervisors Chair Betsy Whitman said. “And I will be proud of this even though it’s [in Ferguson Township…. It’s a very creative solution to an ongoing challenge.”
