“We’re in the home stretch,” said Roberts.
The development has been anticipated since 2018, when the city bought the then-vacant property for $140,000, and buyers for the 10 homes are expected to come from the city’s waiting list.
In West Ashley JJR Development is building 10 new homes for Charleston’s Homeownership Initiative. Each of the five buildings is a duplex, along Juniper Street, and work was continuing Wednesday, Sept. 24, 2025, in Charleston.
Like others in the Homeownership Initiative, the homes will be deed-restricted for 110 years, so they will be resold to future qualified buyers at limited prices. Earlier homeownership efforts by the city created hundreds of additional homes, about 500 of them, but they had 30-year restrictions on resales and are hitting the end of those terms according to city officials.
Some of the homes created under the current initiative came in small bursts as the city seized on one-time opportunities.
When the Grace and Pearman bridges were demolished to make way for the Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge, there were houses in the path of the new bridge. The state bought them, and nine were given to the city, which moved, renovated, and sold them.
In Wagener Terrace, on the peninsula just north of Hampton Park, the city in 2009 sold 42 condominiums called the Cottages at Longborough. They were built by The Beach Company through a deal the city had insisted upon, as part of that company’s plan to demolish the low-income Shoreview Apartments complex it owned and build single-family homes.
Prices at the time started at $111,375 for a two-bedroom, two-bathroom condo — $125 per square foot — which would be about $170,000 in today’s inflation-adjusted dollars. The city had negotiated the price, bought all the condos and sold them at the city’s cost, throwing in some downpayment assistance money.
The city’s list of people interested in buying a Homeownership Initiative home is temporarily closed, but is expected to thin out and likely reopen once more homes become available. In the past, some people on the list have been unable to qualify for mortgages or decided to pass on homes that became available.
