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Posted 7/6/22

MONTICELLO AND LIBERTY, NY — Sullivan County’s Land Bank and the affordable-housing group RUPCO recently unveiled new affordable homes. 

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Looking for affordable housing?

Help is on the way

Posted

MONTICELLO AND LIBERTY, NY — Sullivan County’s Land Bank and the affordable-housing group RUPCO recently unveiled new affordable homes. 

The land bank has completed construction on three properties that previously held vacant, damaged and abandoned houses. The new and affordable single-family homes that have taken the place of uninhabitable blight in the villages of Liberty and Monticello have created homeownership opportunities for three local families, a spokesperson said. 

The construction project was made possible with funding from the NYS Attorney General’s community revitalization initiative. Development costs were further offset with funding from the stae Affordable Housing Corporation and the Office of Homes and Community Renewal’s community development block grant program. This allowed the land bank to sell the homes at a price that is affordable for average working families in the area.

RUPCO oversaw the construction and the purchase of the three new modular homes. The agency worked with prospective home buyers to ensure they met the program qualifications and could manage the responsibilities that come with being a homeowner. The new first-time home buyers include two families with young children and a veteran. 

“Funding for new home construction in the villages of Liberty and Monticello is very important,” said Jill Weyer, the land bank’s executive director. “Owner-occupancy rates in the villages are quite low—28 percent for Monticello and 37 percent for Liberty—and there has been little single-family construction since the 1960s.”

According to the US Census American Community Survey, she said, there has been little development since 2000, and no housing at all developed in the villages between 2010 and 2013. 

The new housing “is restoring value to vacant lots and will help stabilize neighborhoods, creating a stronger sense of security, belonging and attachment to the home and the community,” Weyer said. The programs benefit new buyers and improving blighted areas helps “longstanding homeowners who have lived in the community for decades and have seen a decline in the housing stock, and whose homes have been devalued by vacant and abandoned buildings in their neighborhoods.”

To learn more about the land bank and its work, visit sullivancountylandbank.org.

housing, bank, affordable

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