The Noblesville City Council has dropped a requirement for expensive infrastructure changes at an affordable housing development complex planned south of downtown.

The council voted unanimously Tuesday to waive the condition that T&H Investments remove five electrical poles and widen the street near Townhomes at Stony Creek, 1255 S. 16th St., next to the Noblesville Street Department headquarters.

The improvements would have cost the developer more than $1 million in the $15.2 million project, which is financed largely by grants and loans, Brian Tuohy, an attorney for the developer, told IndyStar.

Tuohy said Duke Energy opposed moving the poles because it would have created engineering problems. And the road widening was unnecessary because that leg of 16th Street is a low traffic with a speed limit of 25 mph that ends at Pleasant Street to the north and Greenfield Avenue to the south.

The developer has already been forced to reduce the size of the project because of rising construction costs and interest rates since it gained zoning approval in 2022, said Scarlett Andrews, vice president of development for T&H.

“The start of construction has been longer than anticipated, due to the cost, in part," Andrews said.

Instead of 53 apartments in seven buildings, the development will have 39 in five buildings. A dog park and a standalone rental office have been eliminated.

Such delays or downsizings are common in low-income projects because they rely on grants and loans from a variety of sources, which arrive at different times and sometimes not at all, Andrews and affordable housing advocates said.

The requirement and bureaucratic hurdles have slowed or reduced a handful of attainable housing projects over the years in Hamilton County, which has an acute shortage of housing for the middle class and poor.

A study in 2022 by the Hamilton County Housing Collaborative found people making $65,000 were essentially locked out of the housing market and those making $98,000 annually could afford only 28% of new construction in the county.

Townhomes at Stony Creek is paid for with $12 million in federal Low-Income Housing Tax Credits and Indiana Housing and Community Development Authority loans; and $750,000 from a federal Community Development Block Grant and Hamilton County American Rescue Plan Act dollars.

The apartments will all have 3 bedrooms and 2 ½ baths.

The apartments will be available for families making below 60%, 50% and 30% of the area median income, which is $102,900 for a family of four in central Indiana and varies depending on household size. Twenty percent of the homes would be set aside for people with disabilities.

Family Promise, an organization that helps homeless people, owns the land and will sell it to the developer now that the project has all the city approvals and financing it needs, Andrews said. The organization will provide counseling, job search assistance, life coaching and other social services to the residents.

Up until 2005, the property was a trailer park. In 2016, developer Real America submitted plans to build low-income housing for people 55 years of age and older but its application for tax credits from the Indiana Housing and Community Development Authority was denied and the project was dropped.

Andrews said construction on Townhomes at Stony Creek could start in October and be finished in 13 months.

Originally published in The Indianapolis Star.