A self-help housing project in Kodiak is one step closer to reality after the City Council passed a resolution to sell 6 acres of land near the municipal airport to the project. The council had committed to selling that land last fall, but was waiting on the project’s partners to secure the money for purchasing the property before transferring it.
The council on March 13 authorized the city manager to negotiate the sale of four lots on Selief Lane to Kodiak Island Housing Authority for $500,000, well below its market value.
Final details and terms still must be worked out. But last year, the council discussed a sale price of roughly $1 million, which is its assessed value, and then crediting half that sale price back to the housing authority.
The housing authority has up to five years to help local applicants construct 10 homes on the four lots of land which is listed as Lakeside Block 1, lots 2-5. Otherwise, unused land will be returned to the City. Housing authority executive director Mindy Pruitt told the council on March 13 that the organization plans to potentially divide that up into 20 lots.
Koniag Inc. is one of the project partners. In a joint press release, the Alaska Native corporation says under this public-private partnership, families will work together to build each other’s homes in Kodiak. It says their sweat equity will help, “change the outmigration tide.”
This model of self-help housing has been used by RurAL CAP to build over a hundred new homes, predominantly in Soldotna and around the Kenai Peninsula. This would be the first time the project will be done in a rural Alaska community off the road system, according to the press release.
RurAL CAP and the Kodiak Island Housing Authority are taking applications for owner-builders. Each family will have to commit to 35 hours a week of labor and obtain a specific construction-permanent mortgage loan under the USDA’s Rural Development 502 direct loan program. More information is available online at https://www.kodiakislandhousing.com/other-assistance/rural-cap-self-help/.
$1 million in grant money from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to RurAL CAP will pay for the project. RurAL CAP’s Mi’Shell French told the council the money was delayed by President Donald Trump’s executive orders to freeze federal funding.
