January 23, 2012 [Jeff Piorkowski, cleveland.com]
SOUTH EUCLID — The city has obtained yet another home from the county’s land bank and has plans to rehabilitate and re-sell the home.
It is just one project upon which the city’s housing department will work during the first half of 2012.
The latest home is the second on that street to undergo rehabilitation and resale. The initiative’s first home, at 4182 Wilmington Road, was sold last year.
“This is our fifth home,” said Housing Manager Sally Martin. “We’re planning to rehabilitate it and sell it in the spring.”
Money gained from the sales goes back into the program to help pay for future rehabilitation work and acquisition of troubled properties.
The Wilmington homes, like others in the program, are former HUD-owned homes that were vacated during the ongoing foreclosure crisis. The latest Wilmington home, Martin said, has been vacant about one year.
“We’ve sold three of the four (Green Neighborhood Initiative) homes, so far,” Martin said, “and we think we have an offer on the fourth.”
That fourth home, at 4111 Lambert Road, is up for sale at an asking price of $119,000, the approximate amount at which each of the three previous homes sold.
Each home is rehabilitated to enterprise green standards.
As 2012 unfolds, Martin said, the city is expecting to unveil two new community gardens to go with the three that already exist amid the West Five portion of the city (in the southwest corner, at the Cleveland Heights border).
The new gardens are planned for 4191 Hinsdale Road, and within Quarry Park, off Monticello Boulevard. The garden in the park will be an educational children’s garden.
Finally, Martin said a small community park is being planned for the lot at the corner of Colony and Halsey roads, overlooking Dugway Brook.
“It will be a little, passive place to sit,” Martin said. “There aren’t going to be too many changes made to the property.”
The site, which is already city owned, is currently vacant.