A master plan to build more than just homes
Habitat for Humanity has a new approach to affordable housing in Houston
Houston’s known for its lack of zoning. It’s also known for its master-planned communities. In a master-planned community, a developer fills in for the lack of direction given by the city, laying out not only where the homes will go, but also the neighboring parks and trails; office buildings and restaurants; even, in larger developments, schools and churches. The idea is that a homebuyer is interested in buying not only a home but also the lifestyle that the surrounding neighborhood can offer.
Houston Habitat for Humanity is bringing that model to affordable housing, in one of the nation’s first master-planned communities created expressly for families of low and moderate incomes.
“Any neighborhood wants to be close to a grocery store and to a bank and health care and a library,” said Allison Hay, executive director of Houston Habitat for Humanity. “So why not carve out part of our land to bring services, not only to these homeowners but to the whole northeast side?”
The new community, Robins Landing, will span 127 acres in northeast Houston, just outside the Loop. The mixed-use, mixed-income plan encompasses 468 single-family homes and as many as 500 apartment and senior housing units, all designed to be affordable for households making up to 120 percent of the Houston area’s median income.
The median income for a household living in the neighborhood surrounding Robins Landing is $37,000, 54 percent of the median income in the Houston area,
Allison Hay, executive director of Houston Habitat for Humanity, said the Robins Landing project is “how we can contribute to affordability.”
according to recent census estimates.
Part of the land will be set aside for a bank, a health clinic, a new branch of the Houston Public Library, a makerspace, a food hall and a resiliency hub where neighbors can go for power and supplies in the case of a disaster. A trail will run through the development, connecting it to Brock Park to the south and a portion of Greens Bayou Greenway known as Greens Thicket to the north.
The ambitious project is an attempt to solve a problem — places where land is inexpensive enough to build affordable homes are often under-resourced. By developing not only reasonably priced homes but also reasonably priced commercial real estate that it can lease out to organizations she frequently works with, Hay hopes to not only address that problem in northeast Houston but also establish a model that other affordable developers can emulate.
On a Tuesday in July, she drove over to the site where construction will start as early as November. A field of wild grasses waved before her as birds sung in the trees north of Tidwell Road and west of Verde Forest Park. Behind her, on the other side of Tidwell, an excavator was digging a detention pond 20 acres wide and 25 feet deep, where the water from the development will drain before joining Halls Bayou. Lush landscape stretched as far as the eye could see.
“I talk to my partners in San Francisco and they say, ‘you have how much land and you’re doing what?’” She chuckled. “This is how we can contribute to affordability. It’s a great economic model.”
Mixed-income, use
One of the reasons the project is possible is because the land — a major cost for homebuilders — is relatively inexpensive in the area. The 127 acres are currently assessed as being worth $2 million, or roughly $15,500 an acre, by the Harris County Appraisal District.
Houston Habitat for Humanity was likely able to pick up the land at an even more affordable price — it purchased the majority of the property in 2008, when the Great Recession was battering real estate.
But the location also throws the definition of affordability into question. A three-bedroom, twobathroom Houston Habitat for Humanity home currently goes for about $155,000. But Habitat is only building 100 of the homes for sale in Robins Landing; the rest will be built by its partners.
Those homes will target families with a higher income, up to 120 percent of what a median Houstonarea household earns — meaning the homes, if sold today, would go for around $247,000. While it would be considered affordable in many parts of Houston, that price is market rate in northeast Houston, where other builders have also benefited from low land prices.
Hay said it was always the intention for the community to be mixed income. Even the most expensive homes in the community will still be targeting a price range that is in short supply — data from housing market research firm Zonda show a housing shortage severely impacting new homes priced under $300,000, with less than a month’s supply on the market.
And bringing in a large number of families with differing incomes will help attract resources to the area. Hay said she had tried to get a grocery store to be part of Robins Landing.
“You know what (grocers) want? Rooftops,” she said. “And they’re so right. Right here, they need houses.”
She wants Robins Landing to be the catalyst that eventually sparks more development — including a new grocery store to complement the Fiesta Mart down the street. “It may not be part of our development,” she said. “But it may be part of revving up, adding more to, what the northeast side is.”
Previous work in area
While this will be Houston Habitat for Humanity’s first community with a plan to incorporate commercial, multifamily and senior living space and parks, it won’t be the first time the nonprofit has planned a large community.
When a developer that started a subdivision named Acorn Glen, a few minutes west of Robin’s Landing on Tidwell, went bankrupt after the housing crash of 2008, Houston Habitat for Humanity bought all of its 49 remaining lots. A few years ago, Habitat began building out the homes, energy-efficient brick buildings (brick has lower maintenance costs) with small front porches and back patios.
Annie Clay moved into one in 2015.
“It is absolutely wonderful,” she said. “Beautiful homes, green spaces with the green trees.” She loves taking walks in the mornings and sitting under her tree in the afternoons and speaks glowingly of her neighbors. She has encouraged her family to also become homeowners; three now have homes.
When asked what she wished the neighborhood had, she spoke only of nearby resources.
“I would like to be able to do everything that I need in the neighborhood,” she said, another grocery store, a dry cleaner and a bank nearby, a park in the subdivision where neighborhood kids could play.
“I love my neighborhood, but that would enhance it — make it even better than what it is.”
Robins Landing is scheduled to take five years to complete, with its first homes ready for move-in as soon as the summer of 2022. Houston City Council is readying to vote as soon as October on allocating $4.79 million for the project, and Arnold Ventures, a philanthropic organization started by Houston billionaires John D. and Laura Arnold, is discussing providing $7.5 million in the form of an interest-free construction loan.