Builder Urges Community, Government Buy-in for Proposed Affordable Housing Development

The developer behind a proposed 80-unit Planned Area Development on St. Thomas urged residents interested in buying one of the homes or townhouses to start work now on qualifying for affordable housing programs his company hopes to partner with to ensure the community can meet its goal of property ownership for Virgin Islanders.

That was a key message at a wide-ranging public hearing Monday that lasted more than two hours and covered a host of questions regarding The Residences at 340 North, the proposed development with two styles of 3-bedroom townhouses — 28 at 20-feet wide and 36 at 24-feet wide — and 16 single-family detached homes on 11.16 acres in Estate St. Joseph and Rosendahl overlooking Magens Bay.

St. Thomas native Ajani Corneiro, a civil engineer and the owner of A.C. Development, said while his company “is working extremely, extremely hard with local agencies and reaching out to every possible department that has three or four letters to ask how they can apply their current programs or policies to assist us in getting home buyers in these units,” the public must do its part as well.

“The whole goal is to have a mix or a myriad of options for people to be able to get in at different price points. We’re not trying to just isolate or target a certain income bracket” but rather create “a mixed-use development or a mixed-income development that is the best approach for a sustainable community,” said Corneiro.