City worker housing plan discussed

By Kipp Hanley

Published: July 30, 2008

Manassas City firefighter Jason Campbell wants some help buying a home for the first time, and his employer might provide that assistance.

The Manassas Housing Trust Fund and the Department of Family Services have a proposal in the works to provide financial assistance to city employees who want to buy homes in the city. The plan, which would assist on down payment and closing costs, still needs to be tweaked but has picked up steam at the committee level.

Both the Finance Committee and the Land Use Committee have heard the presentations and given their thumbs up. The program as recommended by the finance committee would cost the city $675,000, which would likely come from rainy day funds, said city manager Lawrence Hughes.

The program and its final funding will ultimately have to be approved by the finance committee and city council, at the earliest this September, said Hughes. City staff is scheduled to meet this week in order to iron out all of the details before council goes on its summer recess in August.

What's been presented already is a good start, said councilman and Land Use Committee member Andrew Harrover.

"I think it's exactly what we need," said Harrover, who proposed $1 million for a housing program during fiscal 2009 budget discussions. "It means good things for the city, it's good for hiring and recruitment and good for retention."

Campbell currently rents an apartment near Hastings Drive with his pregnant wife and two children, ages 6 and 5. Born and raised in Prince William County, Campbell moved to the city two years ago and started with the fire department in April.

Campbell couldn't afford to buy a home when he moved in the city, and with his wife unable to work now due to pregnancy, he still can't afford it.

"We always thought about it [buying]," Campbell said. "Now with another baby on the way and with us only having a two-bedroom apartment, if we are going to do something, we need to do it now with the way the market it is."

Through June, the city had counted 642 houses on the market, and at least 70 percent of them were bank-owned. A recent study showed only 43 percent of Manassas employees live in the city.

Perhaps even more troubling is the fact that 26 percent of city employees live in Prince William County and roughly 30 percent live outside of the county.

In an anonymous survey regarding the housing program completed this spring, the city received interest from 74 of the 93 people polled, including Campbell. Twenty-seven of those responses came from employees that were currently renting or from people who had never owned a home. The respondents had an average annual salary of $45,270.

The program's cap for financial assistance would be $25,000 per person, if approved. However, the applicant would have to invest 1 percent of the home's sales price from their own funds, attend a number of educational classes and pay $250 to the Housing Trust Fund for administrative costs.

First-time homebuyers may also be able to take advantage of a $3 million grant from the Virginia Housing Development Authority to the Manassas Trust Fund. That money could be applied toward lowering the interest rate on their home loan.

Staff writer Kipp Hanley can be reached at 703-369-5738.