Southern Ridge...

We were looking for 5 IZ homes when we arrived at Southern Ridge, a Gorman and Company/Wasserberg development located off Midtown Road. We easily found the sign marking the development but finding the IZ homes was not so easy. We expected to see two 3-bedroom and three 4-bedroom IZ homes. We had the addresses and lot numbers, so locating the houses should be easy, but that wasn't the case. We found the lots, but there were no IZ homes to be found.

We drove around the area to five different addresses on three different streets. We even drove up into a construction site along the way (thank goodness for 4-wheel drive) which turned out to be for a different development (we were hopeful that some construction was occurring on the homes), but all we could find were vacant lots with real estate signs stuck in each one.

Marketing on these IZ homes, affordable to those making 80% of the area median income, began in July, 2005. The units were bumped from IZ as of March 25. Nearly two months later, construction has not even begun.

Ironically, the incentive the developer required to build these homes was expedited review of the development. Expedited review for what? Obviously, the developer isn't expediting the construction of the houses.