McCleary Hill Ground Breaking

Habitat for Humanity of Washington County will hold a groundbreaking ceremony Thursday at 4:30 p.m. to celebrate the beginning of its new home builds within the McCleary Hill development.

McCleary Hill is a roughly 22-acre site at West Washington Street and Hopewell Road in Hagerstown. It consists of 131 affordable rental units and 16 market rate units that will serve as replacement public housing in two phases for families currently residing in Noland Village. There are also 18 lots for single-family homeownership.

Habitat gained ownership of six new building lots last October that are part of phase one of the McCleary Hill housing project headed up by the Hagerstown Housing Authority and their developer partner Delaware Valley Development Corporation. The Housing Authority reached out to Habitat as part of its desire to develop a portion of the McCleary Hill property for single-family homeownership. It transferred the lots at a purchase price of one dollar per lot. Habitat will also be provided the first option to gain other McCleary lots as part of its continued partnership with the Housing Authority in phase two.

The groundbreaking ceremony on Thursday will include a special announcement that the Habitat homes within McCleary will be dedicated in memory of former executive director, Sherry Cooper, who passed away in July. Cooper had a vision for Habitat to positively impact a neighborhood by providing multiple affordable homes and call it “Hope Village.” This area will be designated as such and permanent signage will be revealed later this year.

Habitat is a non-profit that provides decent, affordable housing for low-income Washington County residents through a combination of new construction, renovating existing structures and home repair. Its overall mission is to put God’s love into action to bring people together to build homes, communities and hope. Through a process that instills stability and self-reliance, homeowners earn the opportunity to purchase a home through the investment of 200 sweat equity hours by volunteering for Habitat, including working on the construction of their own home. They are granted a no-profit, no- interest loan held by Habitat with affordable monthly payments.