The Altoona Redevelopment Authority hosted officials from First Commonwealth Bank Friday in hopes of starting a partnership that could help the authority generate housing and business development projects.

Such help could involve relaxed guidelines so families can afford housing purchases and potential startups can afford to create businesses and could also involve help for developers to bridge the gap between capital costs and their returns on investment through sales or lease income, which in this area often isn’t high enough to incentivize development by itself, according to officials.

The authority plans to meet with officials from other banks to discuss the same issues, according to authority member Ron Beatty, who chaired Friday’s meeting in the absence of regular Chairman Richard Fiore.

There are “innovative” ways to help get families into a home, according to Joe Tomaceski, the bank’s residential community lending manager.

There are cases where the bank will accept just 1% down, with a lower down payment, and even 100% financing, with no down payment, said Evan Zuverink, First Commonwealth’s corporate Community Reinvestment Act officer.

There are also cases where the bank helps with closing costs, he said.

The idea is to get properties back on the tax rolls, including by offering help to families of low-to-moderate income who can’t manage to swing an unassisted purchase, Zuverink said.

The upper limit of LTM is 80% of area median income, officials said.

In Altoona, that 80% level for a family of one is $46,000, while for a family of four, it’s $67,000, according to Eric Luchansky, the city’s community development director.

At this time, $200,000 is about the middle of the range below which housing would be unaffordable for most families and beyond which there wouldn’t be an affordability issue, according to Zuverink.

The top end purchase price is about $225,000, if the family doesn’t have debt, Zuverink said.

It might be $175,000 at the low end, if the family is burdened with car payments, he said.

The corresponding family incomes are perhaps $75,000 on the top end and $40,000 on the low end.

First Commonwealth’s goal in working with families on homeownership goes beyond just getting them in the door, according to Zuverink.

It includes working out arrangements that will allow them to sustain that ownership while raising kids, building wealth and eventually aging in place, he said.

The Redevelopment Authority is pushing for housing rehabilitations and new construction in an attempt to rebuild the tax base.

Additional housing is one of the keys that will help attract more jobs to the area, although it would seem to work the other way around also — more jobs in the area will lead to more housing development, according to Beatty.

The city has already set up much of the agency infrastructure it needs to succeed in its redevelopment efforts, according to Zuverink.

That includes the recently re-established Blighted Property Review Committee, said Rebecca Brown, the city’s director of codes and enforcement.

The committee can declare properties blighted, and it determines what will happen to them — its judgments enabling the Redevelopment Authority to exercise eminent domain on properties that otherwise would be stuck in blight limbo, officials said.

This week, the committee considered eight properties, assigning five for rehabilitation and the others for demolition, Brown said.

Properties held by absentee landowners are the most problematic, according to Brown.

Tho owners’ frequent lack of responsiveness “stalls all the processes,” Brown said.

Also problematic are foreclosed properties, she said.

Local banks aren’t so hard to deal with, but banks in distant states often refuse to answer the city’s inquiries, she said.

All banks hate to foreclose, according to Zuverink.

First Commonwealth loses about $60,000 on each foreclosure, plus the shortfall between what the mortgage holder owes and what the bank can obtain for the property at sheriff sale, according to Zuverink.

“Foreclosures suck,” he said.

However, First Commonwealth is willing to cooperate with the authority to redress any issues it can on its own foreclosed-upon properties, Zuverink said.

One connection that might help the city arrest the deterioration of blighted properties before they reach the point where renovation is impossible is to obtain the services of a crew that would install stopgap protective measures, like a tarp over holes in a roof, Zuverink said.

In one western Pennsylvania borough, that role is played by a nonprofit organization, he said.

Mirror Staff Writer William Kibler is at 814-949-7038.