Construction on Avanelle Crossing, a proposed affordable housing development near Hooper Road in Athens Township, has paused. The developers told officials in an email the project was paused while they explore alternative locations, according to Steve Pierson, vice chairman of the Athens County Township Trustees.
Construction of Avanelle Crossing had not begun when developers chose to consider other locations.
The city of Athens first heard about the project nearly a year ago, according to Meghan Jennings, the Athens city planner.
The location for Avanelle Crossing is a part of Athens Township, but is within the three-mile city annex zone, meaning city officials, such as Jennings, ensure the development is properly zoned according to the city’s standards.
Pierson outlined the township’s role in the process.
“When you develop a public road, that also meets the definition of a subdivision,” Pierson said. “So that would have been the township's involvement on that.”
The development was introduced as part of a Low Income Housing Tax Credit Program administered by the Ohio Housing Finance Agency.
Avanelle Crossing would be the third LIHTC development in Athens, the other two being Kershaw Greens and Blackburn Landings, along with two more in the development process in The Plains.
However, Jennings highlighted concerns about transportation issues from locals about the location of Avanelle Crossing.
“LIHTC projects usually have young families and a decent amount of kids,” Jennings said. “As well as not every family who may be living in a LIHTC project has multiple vehicles, if a vehicle at all, and so the transportation and access concerns were expressed across many different groups during that review process. But we did, we, being the city, did our due diligence and reviewed the application to all of the regulations that we needed to, and provided feedback.”
Avanelle Crossing’s location is southwest of the city of Athens and is not close to a bus stop for Athens Public Transit.
The proposed project was a 60-unit affordable housing development, funded through the Appalachian Set Aside from Ohio’s LIHTC program. The developers would likely ask to retain the funding should they choose a new location for the development, according to Pierson.
Due to Athens County being one of the poorest counties in the state, many people qualify for affordable housing, according to Jennings.
According to 2024 data from the U.S. Census Bureau, 23.5% of people in Athens County live in poverty.
However, Jennings does not believe Athens will host LIHTC projects in the near future because of changes to OHFA guidelines targeting the region.
“I don't think that future LIHTC projects will be approved in Athens because the state changed their guidelines to basically disincentivize Athens specifically,” Jennings said. “There's now new language that specifically calls out southeastern Ohio, and the program guidelines say that any community that has already received LIHTC project approvals in the past couple of years won't be ranked as high moving forward, at least for the next five years.”
Tom Pyle, the director of code enforcement for the city of Athens, shared why he thought developers of Avanelle Crossing decided to pause construction.
“They did indicate that it was because of requirements that we had asked them to meet, but that was comment from the developer in a phone call to me probably in July,” Pyle said. “I sent them a letter asking for certain proposals, for them to bring that to their final subdivision hearing in the planning commission, and they stopped work after receiving that letter.”
Pyle said the developers have not officially stopped the Avanelle Crossing project. The developers said they would reach out again if they wanted to reinstate the project, but they have not yet contacted Pyle.
