Columbus officially broke ground Thursday on 23 new condominiums at East Broad Street and South Gould Road, a $199,000 homeownership project the city says will give families a shot at building equity even as median home prices across the region blow past $429,000. The catch, according to city officials, is that qualifying still requires an income most Columbus households don't have.
A Family Of Four Needs $110,000 To Qualify
Curtiss Williams, president and CEO of the Central Ohio Community Improvement Corporation, said a family of four typically needs to earn around $110,000 a year to qualify for one of the new condos, while a single buyer needs income up to $79,000, as reported by WSYX. That income ceiling reflects the requirement that buyers earn at or below 120% of the area median income. Columbus's median household income is about $67,000, per the U.S. Census Bureau, a gap that underscores how far incomes still have to stretch even for a home priced well under market rate.
The project, known as Broad & Gould, will include 15 two-bedroom units and 8 three-bedroom units across a four-story building on a long-vacant lot across from Panera Bread, according to the Eastmoor Civic Association. Plans also call for a ground-floor fitness room and a community room. Under Columbus building and zoning rules, the structure is classified as an apartment building for permitting purposes because it has shared hallways, even though all 23 units are designated strictly for fee-simple condominium ownership rather than rental housing, the civic association notes.
How The Land Trust Keeps Prices Down
The project uses the community land trust model operated by the Central Ohio Community Land Trust, which allows a buyer to own the home while the land trust retains ownership of the land underneath it. COCLT, a subsidiary of the Franklin County Land Bank established in 2018, leases land to homeowners through a 99-year renewable ground lease that keeps homes outside the full market and enforces permanent affordability through an appraisal-based resale formula, according to the land trust's own materials. When a Broad & Gould unit eventually sells, the land trust model requires it go to another income-qualified buyer, keeping the homes permanently affordable rather than letting them reset to market price.
Williams said the model is precisely what makes that permanence possible. Homebuyers will also need to weigh property taxes, homeowners insurance and HOA fees, along with everyday costs like groceries, utilities, transportation and child care, before committing — and prospective buyers more broadly need to understand their credit, down payment capacity and monthly costs going in.
City, County And Nonprofit Dollars Behind The Build
Columbus is partnering with the Central Ohio Community Land Trust and Finance Fund on the project, with the city putting $3 million in affordable housing bond money toward construction and providing $1.1 million in homebuyer assistance. Jeffrey Mohrman, executive vice president of real estate at Finance Fund, is among the partners involved in bringing the development to completion. Mayor Andrew Ginther said the investment is meant to help more Columbus residents own homes and build wealth, framing homeownership as a way for families to build wealth and stability for future generations.
Broad & Gould is part of Columbus's broader push to expand affordable housing and homeownership, and it builds on a strategy COCLT began shifting toward in April 2025, when the land trust launched its first multi-unit condo project — a 19-unit development in Franklinton built with Finance Fund, according to the Central Ohio Community Improvement Corporation. Before that pivot, COCLT had focused mainly on scattered-site single-family homes. Hoodline's earlier reporting found that COCLT closed 46 homes in 2025, with 93% going to first-time buyers whose average household income was about $61,000, and has completed more than 138 affordable homes across Franklin County since it began.
Buyers Get Extra Help, But The Timeline Is Long
Homebuyers purchasing through COCLT also qualify for a 15-year property tax abatement that further lowers monthly carrying costs, on top of the project-specific down payment assistance the city is offering. Columbus separately runs the American Dream Downpayment Initiative, which gives eligible first-time buyers up to $14,999, or 6% of the purchase price, in five-year deferred, forgivable loans for down payments and closing costs, provided they occupy the home for the full five years. At Broad & Gould specifically, WSYX reports that 92% of Central Ohio Community Land Trust buyers have been first-time homeowners.
The city says it plans to welcome homebuyers into the finished condos in the fall of 2027, meaning families who qualify now still face more than a year's wait. The project is designed to give 23 families a chance at homeownership, though city officials frame the investment as one meant to help multiple homeowners over time, since the land trust's resale restrictions are built to pass affordability on to future buyers long after the first sale closes.
A Regional Affordability Squeeze
The groundbreaking lands against a backdrop of widespread frustration over housing costs. A Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission survey published in 2025 found that 73% of Central Ohio residents rated housing as too expensive, with 51% naming an increased supply of affordable housing as the single most effective action to strengthen the local economy, according to MORPC. Industry research cited in Hoodline's prior coverage has estimated a shortage of roughly 320,000 homes across the region affordable to households earning $75,000 a year, even as the median existing-home price in the Columbus metro area has climbed to $429,300.
City officials have tied projects like Broad & Gould to Columbus's voter-approved $500 million affordable housing bond fund and the Zone In zoning code overhaul, which is meant to streamline approvals for denser residential developments. Whether that combination of land trust economics, bond financing and zoning changes can keep pace with a housing market moving further out of reach for the city's median-income household remains an open question the city is still working to answer, one project at a time.
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