Program planned to address lack of new home construction in Johnstown

JOHNSTOWN, Pa. (WJAC) — Listen to this statistic. Johnstown has had no new houses built in its city limits for more than a decade.

When a local business leader recently said that in a news conference, we wanted to find out if that was true.

As our Johnathon O’Halloran discovered, it is true, but several programs are proposed to actually change that.

If you take a walk through the neighborhoods of Johnstown, you’ll notice quite a few areas with empty, overgrown lots, which once held homes that have long since been demolished.

In other areas, you’ll find condemned, unsightly homes that are scheduled for demolition.

What you don’t see is construction sites where new homes are being built.

“One of the things that bothers me a lot is that we complain in the city, but we don’t do anything to fix the problem,” says Vision Together 2025 executive director Robert Forcey.

Now, Vision Together 2025 is determined to do something they say will fix at least one problem.

The nonprofit community organization has come up with a plan to get the sounds of hammers and saws building homes heard again.

The organization received approval from the city for a six-year plan to turn some sites into the first new homes built in Johnstown since 2014.

They’re calling it the new housing program.

Through the funding of local businesses, Vision has secured a commitment of $600,000 to build new homes throughout the city.

Vision then plans to sell those homes at-cost.

“If you buy one of these houses, I’ll be handing you an itemized list stating ‘this is what it cost us to build this,’ and you would hand me a check back for that.And then that home obviously becomes part of the generational wealth of families,” Forcey explained.

Forcey says these homes will be built, and sold, for anywhere between 89 and 99 thousand dollars – making them obtainable for folks in Johnstown.

And all of them will be built within Johnstown’s city limits.

“The average income for folks in the city is right around $38,000, so somebody that’s making $38,000 could possibly afford a $93,000 house, giving them a $700-$800 mortgage payment.Our goal is to meet that.”

Forcey then took us to Kernville, to show us some of the sites that Vision could consider for the project that he says should help combat blight in the neighborhood.

“This is an example of one of the lots that we have that we would probably consider for purchase, for the home program. But there’s over 600 of these sites around the city.”

It’s examples like this that have led to the support from local government, including its city manager.

“It’s going to give the opportunity for affordable housing, to attract people, to keep people in the area and let the town really open up,” says Johnstown City Manager Art Martynuska.

“I think the program may be three phases, where we attract people, where we keep people, and we retain young people in the community,” Martynuska added.

This June, city officials say the first home will be built.

And over the next six years, Vision says they’ll be able to build 21 homes in total, through the funding already secured, and by reinvesting the money from homes sold, into newer homes.

These will become the first new builds within the city’s limits since 2014.

It’s a project that hopes to solve a few problems real estate experts say Johnstown suffers from.

“I’ve seen houses, through the courthouse records, that do not even have an age on the tax card.It just says literally old.When you get a lot of out-of-town people coming into our area, they’re looking for newer homes and we just don’t have that,” says Adam Dugan of Coldwell Banker Prestige Realty.

Dugan says this also will helpsolve availability issues for potential home buyers.

While rental properties are plentiful, there are few opportunities to buy.

However, he also cautions that the new housing program isn’t the only piece to the puzzle.

“To keep this successful is to keep investing in the community, to keep up with the parks, the blight. The old saying is you don’t want to have the nicest house on a block, you want to live across from the nicest house on a block,” Dugan added.

“So, if you start seeing upkeep on people’s properties, you see the newer house, it may entice other people to start upkeeping things.”

The city and Vision are also acknowledging that these are just the first steps to solving a larger problem.

“It’s a positive that we’re all working together, the city can’t do everything; it’s a combination of our business community, our legislators and our community in general that is going to move Johnstown forward; this is just one of many projects that we look forward to in 2025,” says Johnstown Mayor Frank Janakovic.

“This is our first bite and we’re hoping that it attracts other developers to come to the area,” the mayor added.

We then asked if building just 21 houses is enough to make an impact.

“Not enough to really say that we’ve made a phenomenal change to Johnstown, but it’s a start,” the mayor says.

All 21 homes in the program will be under 2 deed restrictions.

The first is a 5-year residency requirement where whoever buys the home must live there.

The other is the homes will not be able to be used as rental properties.

Vision notes that the program does not have any income restrictions.

Anyone interested in applying to own one of these upcoming homes can apply at Vision 2025’s website.