COLLEGE STATION, Texas — A 2017 grant with the City of College Station is coming to an end after the per-house cost more than doubled.
- In a College Station city council meeting, the city and Habitat for Humanity mutually agreed to end the contract.
- In 2017, the nonprofit projected $187,000 per house. In 2024, the price rose to $448,000 per house.
- BCS Habitat for Humanity will be selling the property to reimburse the City of College Station and $65,000 will be returned to the federal government.
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Building homes from the ground up — that’s what Habitat for Humanity is known for in the Brazos County community, and around the country.
“All the available land to build new construction that was normal or easy to develop has been done," said Andry York with Bryan-College Station Habitat for Humanity.
"The properties that still exist have issues, and that's what we ran into here with this particular piece of land.”
York is talking about this piece of property off Victoria Avenue in College Station — 15ABC turned to him for answers after hearing about the problems with this project.
“It was just one thing after another — and every step started adding more and more cost to the development. ”
In 2017, the City of College Station partnered with Habitat for Humanity to build eight houses.
They started running into issues with drainage, developing the property, as well as the skyrocketing costs of construction.
York says when the nonprofit entered into the contract in 2017, they projected an eight house development at $187,000 per house — now in 2024, they downsized to a five house development at $448,000 per house.
It was simply out of the budget.
“It's one of many projects that we've got, and really one of our smaller projects," York said.
"It's very disappointing, especially for the families who were hoping to live there in College Station, but it doesn't change what we're able to do.”
Over the years, York says Habitat for Humanity has built around 35 homes in College Station.
Going forward, he says it’s likely they will look into remodeling existing homes, rather than building from the ground up.