AUSTIN, Texas — As Austin grows, the need for affordable housing grows with it, and a nonprofit is partnering with the city to build a new multifamily development in East Austin.
On Jan. 25, the City of Austin Housing Department announced that it closed a $58 million construction financing deal with Foundation Communities, a nonprofit started by University of Texas students in the early 1980s, to create a new affordable housing development.
Foundation Communities has been building “affordable, attractive homes” in the Austin area since 1990, and the group currently operates 25 apartment communities in Austin and three in North Texas, according to the nonprofit's website.
This new development is the nonprofit’s first partnership with the Austin Housing Finance Corporation (AHFC), and it will be called Norman Commons, due to it being built next to Norman-Sims Elementary. The property was originally bought by the AHFC from the Austin Independent School District in 2018.
Located at 3811 Tannehill Lane near U.S. Route 183, Norman Commons Apartments will be a 156-unit, multifamily development, which is expected to be finished by late 2025. The development will be off of the future Green Line rail service that the city is building from the Austin Convention Center all the way out to Elgin.
“We are thrilled to help build an amenity- and services-rich, family-friendly community adjacent to Norman Sims Elementary to continue our goal of affordable housing in Austin,” said Mandy DeMayo, interim director for the City of Austin’s Housing Department, in a news release. “These investments ensure affordable units in areas vulnerable to displacement.”
The plan is for 75% of the units at the Norman Commons to have multiple bedrooms, and some of those units will have four bedrooms.
“All units will serve families at or below 60% of the median family income,” the release said. “Norman Commons will also work to serve our unhoused neighbors, with sixteen units having a preference for families at risk of homelessness via Foundation Communities’ Children’s HOME Initiative Program, which has been serving homeless families across Austin since 2003.”
The city also announced that 32 units of affordable ownership housing are being built by the Guadalupe Neighborhood Development Corporation’s community land trust program on the property. The units will be townhomes, and it will be called Ada Anderson Place. The group anticipates for construction to be completed in late 2026 or early 2027.
This development will not only provide housing for lower-income communities, but it will also provide free support services, including afterschool and summer programs at Norman-Sims Elementary, a healthy food pantry and classes for adults.
The issue of the lack of affordable housing in the city has been an issue on the minds of Austinites for years.
HousingWorks Austin, a nonprofit that researches the lack of affordable housing in the city, does a yearly analysis of each of the Austin City Council districts’ cost of living and housing situations.
The most recent study was from 2022, and in District 1, where the Norman Commons will be built, about 47% of renters are cost burdened due to their living situation and about 23% of those renters are extremely cost burdened. The study also found that 27% of homeowners were cost burdened, with 9% of them being extremely cost burdened.
“We are excited about having this opportunity to help more lower-income families in Austin find stability and success through affordable housing and support services,” said Foundation Communities Executive Director Walter Moreau in the release.