Valley News reports that Twin Pines Housing Trust has received initial approval from USDA Rural Development to purchase the Pine Tree Lane apartments in West Lebanon, NH. Below is an excerpt from the article.
The death last month of the owner of two subsidized housing complexes in West Lebanon will not prevent a nonprofit organization from purchasing the properties by the end of the year and maintaining them as affordable housing, federal officials say. David Hodges Sr., 84, president of The Hodges Companies and owner of the Pine Tree Lane and Beechwood apartments, 100 units of affordable housing located on an extension of Pleasant Street in West Lebanon, died at home in New London on Aug. 16. Hodges had notified Pine Tree residents in late March that their rental assistance would expire at the end of December. Since then, Twin Pines Housing Trust — an Upper Valley nonprofit developer of affordable housing — has been working toward purchasing the property in order to preserve the affordability of the apartments. On Friday, Ted Brady, the director of USDA Rural Development in Vermont and New Hampshire, said his program has completed preliminary underwriting of the mortgage loan necessary for Twin Pines to purchase the properties. The initial approval is “a critical milestone that indicates the transfer of the property from the current owner to Twin Pines will occur before rental assistance to the residents of Pine Tree Apartments expires in December,” Brady said. Under Rural Development’s Section 515 program, the loan would allow residents to continue to receive rental assistance for up to 30 additional years, Brady said. Brady said he could not predict how Hodge’s death might affect Twin Pines’ purchase, but “the most important part is the fundamentals of the deal have been worked out, (which) indicates we’ll get to the closing before December.” In an email Friday, Twin Pines Executive Director Andrew Winter confirmed that his organization has received initial approval from Rural Development. “We at Twin Pines are delighted that we have been able to step forward at a time of need, and working with The Hodges Companies, reach an agreement to keep this property affordable,” he said. “While there remain issues to complete the sale, we do not believe those issues to be significant.”
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