Syracuse Wants to Build 52 New Houses on Vacant Land Bank Lots
One Community Update
November 29, 2025
Source: syracuse.com
A new state program that’s funding construction of new factory-built houses needs vacant residential lots, and the Greater Syracuse Land Bank has plenty to offer.
The land bank this week filed an application for funding to build 52 single-family houses on sites it owns. The state grant, called MOVE-IN NY, seeks to address the shortage of affordable, quality housing by turning to the manufactured housing industry. These houses can be built cheaper and faster than traditional stick-built homes.
The Syracuse land bank has seen the program’s potential firsthand. It was one of three land banks that participated in a test run for the state program earlier this year. A three-bedroom, two-bathroom single-story house was built for a vacant lot on Maxwell Avenue. The agency quickly sold the new home to an income-qualified buyer for $175,000, a discount from the $280,000 construction cost, with the state making up the difference.
The test went well enough that the state expanded the program with $50 million in grants available. With the land bank’s success under the pilot — and its control of dozens of vacant, flat residential lots in areas where housing options of limited — the agency’s leader is optimistic about the chances of getting funds.
“I don’t know if they will agree with every single one of those sites that we’ve proposed, but I’m confident that we’ll get a large number of houses built with this,” said Katelyn Wright, the land bank’s executive director.
While the land bank owns about 300 buildable vacant lots, the agency narrowed the list for the state application down to sites that can accommodate 52 homes. Criteria for the selections included lot size, the terrain and the characteristics of homes in the neighborhood. While the house sizes may vary slightly based on the models available from the manufactured housing companies that the state would allow the land bank to use, they would all be one-story, single-family homes.
The majority of the sites are on the city’s South Side, including 18 in the Brighton neighborhood and 10 in North Valley. There are also clusters of sites on the North Side, Eastwood and the Near West Side.
Pricing on the houses will vary depending on the neighborhood, but under the terms of the program, they must sold to buyers with household earnings between 70% and 130% of the median area income. That translates into an annual range between $72,450 and $134,550 for a home with four residents in Syracuse. In addition, a buyer’s monthly housing costs, which includes mortgage and escrow payments and expected utilities, can’t exceed 30% of household income.
Based on the interest from the pilot house, where a half dozen formal offers quickly came in, Wright expects there will be plenty of demand for the houses.
Wright said the state will probably move quickly with its funding decisions, perhaps as soon as next month. The land bank will work this winter to get site plans and permits approved by the city so construction can get started around late spring. She expects to be getting one new house per week built once the program is fully running.
“My hope is that we can really have a robust pipeline of sales by summer,” she said.
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