Nestled among the expensive mountain homes that dominate the landscape of Western North Carolina are the small towns that draw people to the area. Every day, firefighters, teachers, town clerks and others perform the jobs that make these towns run. Then at night, they return to their multi-million dollar enclaves to get some shuteye.

In a perfect world, that is. In reality, the salaries earned by critical community employees likely aren’t enough to snag an expensive home in a ritzy, gated community. Meanwhile, those communities are pushing the price of land up in WNC. Which begs the questions — just what is a working family supposed to do?

One developer in Jackson County is attempting to address that very question.

Herb Ross, who lives in Cashiers, has owned a piece of land in the Sylva town limits for years. Three years ago, he saw an opportunity to address a gap in housing options for the median income individual.

“Safe and affordable housing opportunities are dwindling in Jackson County and have become a critical need for the town of Sylva,” Ross wrote on his application to the planning department seeking approval for his development.

In seven years, Sylva has seen a net housing increase of a mere 20 units and added a total of 70 people to its overall population. That’s 10 a year — a painfully slow rate compared to booms in nearby locales.

According to town planner Jim Aust, it’s not a lack of room that’s preventing development in town limits.

“There are large tracts in the middle of city limits that are sitting vacant because they didn’t provide an opportunity for the developer to make any money off them,” Aust says.

Aust says that the zoning inside Sylva town limits is geared toward single-family homes on half-acre lots. That dates back to post-World War II days, when land was cheap and plentiful. But the traditional single-family model has today fallen out of favor with developers as the cost of land and infrastructure has risen.

“By the time you pay impact fees, buy the land and build a place, you don’t have an affordable house,” says Aust. “It’s tough to build a house on a half-acre and build it affordable and make money off it with the cost of infrastructure.”

So instead of following the traditional model, Ross and his Taurus Development Corporation are focusing on affordability in developing the land Ross owns within town limits.

“We call it workforce housing,” Ross says. “The problem that has existed in this area and others is that we have teachers, service personnel, fireman, policeman, nurses, and professors who have been looking for affordable housing, and it’s been difficult to find the type of housing suitable for them and in the right price range.”

“They’re looking for housing and having a very hard time finding housing that meets their requirements inside the city,” agrees Don Evans, the Florida-based architect Ross has teamed with to create The Crossings.

Those requirements include a space big enough for a family, close to amenities, and not an apartment or mobile home — features Ross and Evans have incorporated in the design.

Dense development

The Crossings will sit on 46 acres in the town of Sylva. It will encompass 68 town homes and 51 single-family dwellings with a six-acre public park buffering the two.

To keep the development’s footprint small, Evans said he and Ross have essentially taken a single family home “and turned it on its end.” Each single family home has multiple levels and a small foundation.

“The design of the facilities will be up instead of out — instead of large, sprawling, single-story units, they’ll be two to three stories,” explains Aust.

The foundation of each unit will rest on a topo-oriented site, meaning it conforms to the land around it rather than sitting on land that’s been leveled. When a site is leveled, the foundation of a unit becomes expensive, which in turn drives up cost, says Evans.

“That’s why some resorts in the area are $300 a square foot,” he says.

In The Crossings, a small footprint doesn’t translate into a cramped space. Evans envisions four and even five rooms, big enough to accommodate a large, active family. Each single-family unit will have a two-car garage with a driveway.

The developers are looking into some fairly progressive means of keeping the development financially attainable. They’re looking to subsidize down payments on the properties through a program offered by the state of North Carolina that provides incentives for workforce housing. Evans has been successful in applying state monies for down payment financing in Florida, where he has worked on similar workforce developments.

“In other words, that reduces down payment so they can afford to get (a house) without coming up with a chunk of money for a down payment,” says Aust.

A bonus room included in each unit could also help the homeowner afford the property. The room will only be accessible by an outside entrance. Though the bonus room could be used for anything the buyer wants, Aust sees its potential as another unit the owner could rent out to help subsidize the cost of a mortgage.

The owner could install plumbing to accommodate a kitchen and a bathroom in the bonus room, creating a small apartment space.

“Now we’ve got our median income housing people able to buy a house, but we also provide a space for lower income housing that they can rent from the median income people,” says Aust.

The Crossings has already been approved by the planning department and must undergo a public hearing and a final meeting before its approved by the Sylva town board. Evans says the group hopes to have construction underway by the beginning of 2009. Evans would not give any prices, only saying the units would cost more than $100,000.

More housing coming

Two other developments are in the works that will provide more housing for Sylva residents.

After some thought, developer Arthur Pohl changed his plans to build single-family homes on 18.5 acres inside town limits and instead opted for a cluster development — placing 32 townhomes on eight acres of the property and leaving the rest open space. The Laurel Branch development consists of 32 town homes within walking distance of downtown Sylva. The town homes sit on 8 acres; the rest of the property will be dedicated to the town for public use in a conservation easement. Construction has just begun and homes are priced between $300,000 and $350,000.

The Trymont Trails Development Corporation is in the process of petitioning for the annexation of 7.8 acres near WestCare hospital. Plans are preliminary, but will likely consist of multi-family apartments that can be bought or rented as well as some condos and single-family homes.