Parish to develop land for senior community

by Mary Helen Sprecher
newsroom@baltimoreguide.com

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Officials at Our Lady of Fatima Parish have been exploring the possibility of developing an affordable senior housing community on the parish grounds. And if all goes well, according to Catholic Charities, which is serving as the developer on the project, construction may begin within two years.

According to Fr. Kevin Milton, pastor at Our Lady of Fatima, older parishioners and those in the area have long expressed a desire to remain in their neighborhood. Trouble is, keeping up a two- or in many cases, a three-story rowhouse has become increasingly difficult for them.

“I’ll have been here two years in August,” said Fr. Milton, “and as long as I’ve been here, I can remember people saying to me, ‘I’d love to stay here and stay in my house, but it’s too big. Some of these people have been living here and going to this parish since it started in 1951. This is their home.”

Fr. Milton brought up the matter during a parish council meeting. Why not, he asked, alot some of the parish’s nine-acre site to become a housing development for the seniors of the community? The council responded with enthusiasm.
“They were very much behind it,” he said.

Because the OLF property technically belongs to the Archdiocese of Baltimore, the church’s next step was to broach the matter with that organization. The archdiocese approved the idea.

Catholic Charities, which has worked on various church-afiliated affordable senior housing developments around the Baltimore area, contacted the parish and set up a meeting. Dale R. McArdle, director of housing services for Catholic Charities, examined the property, according to Fr. Milton.

“(McArdle) couldn’t get over the beauty of the property,” said Fr. Milton.
“The location is terrific,” said McArdle. “It’s right there in a very stable neighborhood—it’s pretty ideal. Bayview Hospital is right there, there’s a shopping center. You want there to be places for shopping and places people can go.”
“There really are so many wonderful advantages to this area,” said Fr. Milton.
The project could be funded through the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). As a publicly funded project, it would be open to those in a specific age group (age 62 and up) and within a certain income level.

A letter from McArdle to OLF communicants published in a recent parish bulletin noted that Catholic Charities would purchase one tract of land measuring about 1.5 acres for development, and would reserve a remaining 1.5 acres for future development. An appraisal of the total three-acre property confirmed a value of $1.2 million, according to McArdle’s letter.

“Developing two buildings on the surplus parcel makes the land more affordable for the likely size of the projects that could be publicly funded,” wrote McArdle.
Each of the two buildings would have 54 units, according to McArdle’s letter to parishioners.

According to both McArdle and Fr. Milton, the project has been approved by both the Bayview community and by Councilman Nicholas D’Adamo (D-2).

Preliminary plans for the senior housing community at Fatima are for one-bedroom apartments. According to McArdle, Catholic Charities would like to see a development that fits in with the existing landcape of the area, “something consistent with the neighborhood’s archtecture and history.”

Presently, Catholic Charities is preparing its application for HUD funding. The application is due May 25. McArdle said he “would expect to hear something some time in October.”

There can be no doubt, McArdle added, of the need for senior housing. Catholic Charities, which has 19 developments in and around the Baltimore metro area, has a waiting list “of about 468 people for all of our projects in Baltimore City.”

As a federally funded project, said McArdle, the new community near OLF will be open to anyone who fits the criteria. It has been his experience, however, that most of those who want to live in a specific community are those who already live in the neighborhood.

The estimated development schedule published in the letter included in the OLF parish bulletin noted that a funding announcement was expected November 1 of 2007, and that a design team would be engaged by December 1 of the same year. The final architectural plans would be completed by June 1, 2008, with cost analysis completed by July 2, 2008. A firm commitment would be submitted to HUD by January 2, 2009, with HUD submitting its own commitment by March 1. Closing, with construction beginning, would take place around May 1, with construction expected to be complete April 1, 2010.

At the moment, however, the timetable depends upon the HUD funding for the project. Does McArdle believe it will go through?

“I’m always optimistic,” he said.

To Fr. Milton, the concept works perfectly. After all, there’s an audience just waiting for the chance to move in.

“To me, it’s a no-brainer,” he said, since the seniors who attend OLF are anxious to stay in the community. “There are certainly a lot of beautiful nursing homes and retirement communities out there, but they’re filled with people that our people don’t know. Moving here would be perfect.”