Leesburg High School students will be building two homes per year for Habitat for Humanity.
This week, Leesburg commissioners reviewed zoning and plan changes for property to be developed by Habitat for Humanity.
The 2.4 acre parcel is located north of Hill Street and east of Penn Street. The property had been zoned Highway Commercial and the Planing and Zoning recommendation was that the property be zoned as City of Leesburg SPUD (Small Planned Unit Development). If the Penn Street Zoning is granted after the public hearing on the ordinance changes scheduled for July 22, the SPUD will be designated as the Penn Street Habitat SPUD and will have eight lots.
The Penn Street Habitat project will be constructed with the aid of the Leesburg High School’s Youth Construction Academy program. The 2.4 acre parcel had been donated to the Lake-Sumter Habitat for Humanity chapter two years ago.
Danielle Stroud, Habitat for Humanity’s chief executive officer, told the commissioners that once the proper infrastructure for the development was put in place the students should be able to construct two houses per year. She said that the property facing Penn Street might possibly be started later in the coming school year.
Mayor Jimmy Burry told Stroud that the cooperation between the city, school and Habitat for Humanity had been “phenomenal.”