Latest Project Through Rebuild Duluth Completed
DULUTH, Minn, – A new home in Duluth’s Irving Neighborhood is one of the latest completed projects part of Rebuild Duluth.
The city set up the program in 2019, giving developers free lots if they can create home designs that will fit in them.
The home at 58th Avenue West and Redruth, designed by Office Hughes Olsen and built by One Roof Community Housing, could be used as a prototype to help infill other city lots.
“When I say infill, what I’m talking about is lots that exist in neighborhoods that have infrastructure,” says Jason Hale, Senior Housing Developer for the City of Duluth. “So streets, sidewalks, and utilities already there, so we’re not having to create new plats or new developments. We’re using the infrastructure in existing neighborhoods.”
Rebuild Duluth had several projects approved since its creation. That includes a double housing unit at the corner of North 54th Avenue East and Otsego Street, and a tiny home at the corner of North 6th Avenue East and East 8th Street. Hale says around a half-dozen more could be approved in the future.
The program was created as an option the city has available to help address the need for more housing options by giving away lots to developers. Hale says just having that incentive isn’t enough anymore. “You’d be surprised providing a free lot isn’t what makes or breaks an affordable housing project. You have to have other projects and other tools and leverage to make them truly affordable.”
It is this reason why the city shifted Rebuild Duluth to part of the city’s Housing Trust Fund in the fall of 2021. Council members approved 4-million dollars to fund it, providing land and funding assistance to developers who can help increase the number of affordable homes.
Hall says the city wants to make this approach a favorable enough risk for developers to want to build a new affordable housing unit to actually do it. “It’s very complicated, but we’re doing what we can and there is going to have to be some adaptations that have to happen.”
A committee will consider the first of 22 applications for funding a project through the Housing Trust Fund later this week.
