A vacant lot on Phillips St. in Fulton won’t be vacant much longer.
The state awarded the city grants totalling $362,000 to build four homes on the lot and to hook them into the city’s water and sewer systems.
“It adds tax base and brings new families to Fulton,” Mayor Ron Woodward said recently.
The land once was the home of the Phillips St. School. The school was torn down in 1996 and the land has been a vacant green space ever since.
The school district gave the land to the city recently, in exchange for a piece of city-owned land next to the high school that students use for parking.
The land can hold eight single family homes, but the grant money will only be enough for four homes to be built. Woodward said the homes will go up next summer.
“Two years ago, we talked about multi-use (plans for the land),” said Joe Fiumara, who heads the Fulton Community Development Agency. “We became more receptive to residents that it be single family homes instead.”
The homes will sell quickly at market rates, he indicated, noting that there’s a waiting list of 80 families in the city’s Affordable Home Ownership Program. Most, said Fiumara, are renters who want to own a home.
First time home buyers are “just what we want,” said the alderman for the ward, Tom Kenyon, at a recent meeting.
The city will pursue grants to build homes on the remaining four lots. In the meantime, the land will remain green space.
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