City seeks bids on Pollock Street homes

♦ The affordable housing initiative in South Rome is seeded through state and federal grants.

An onsite meeting is set for 10 a.m. today for builders who want to bid on a four-house project on Pollock Street.

The South Rome Redevelopment Corp. is accepting proposals through 3 p.m. Nov. 28. Funding is through the city of Rome’s CHIP Build affordable housing program, seeded with a combination of state and federal funds.

Plans call for ranch-style houses with approximately 1,138 square feet of indoor space, a carport and a small deck in the back. They’ll each have three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a living room, dining area, kitchen and laundry room.

The four adjoining lots start at the corner of South Broad Street and run down the north side of Pollock to the former Curtis Packing Co. acreage. The industrial property, now owned by the city of Rome, is slated to become the site of a SPLOST-funded community boathouse and greenspace on the Coosa River.

The 2017 special purpose, local option sales tax package contains $3.7 million for the “waterways” initiative. The project combines the new boathouse with an expansion of the RomeFloyd ECO River Education Center at Ridge Ferry Park and riverside campsites for kayakers.

A budget has not yet been formalized and collections won’t start until April, but the Pollock Street element is considered the linchpin. The meadows are slated to be maintained as a second ECO Center site and the SRRC eventually plans a park there.

Charles Looney, executive director of the SRRC, has said a small lot in a flood plain, between the last house and the SPLOST acreage, will be reserved for a community garden. The quasigovernmental body is serving as developer for the city’s Community Development Department, which is building and selling homes as part of its revitalization effort.

The Pollock Street homes will be available to first-time buyers making less than 80 percent of the median area income. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development calculated the income limit in Floyd County at $43,500 for a family of four in 2018.

Community Development Director Bekki Fox said five new homes on Wilson Avenue were the most recent addition to the South Rome stock. Four of the homes have already sold, putting a total of $391,772 back in the revolving fund, which is re-invested in additional new housing.

The Wilson Street homes were in the $90,000-range but officials are bracing for slightly higher prices, due to the cost of rebuilding in the wake of Hurricanes Florence and Michael.