Restore Old Affordable Homes, Or Build Anew?

In the town of Apalachicola, Florida, "The original affordable housing here was the shotgun." Century-old shotgun homes, that is. So argues Creighton Brown, a New York transplant who's spearheading "a local plan to train job-seeking residents in home construction through the rehabilitation of abandoned, working-class cottages known as shotgun homes."

Brown's plan is an alternative to Denton Cove, a more conventional affordable housing project that locals fear will concentrate poverty in something reminiscent of, well, a project. Christine Negroni writes, "Mr. Brown, a contractor specializing in historic structures, worked with a nonprofit housing developer in New Orleans to survey and map abandoned shotguns that could be restored to habitability."

The restoration plan faces obstacles, including a 1970s-era zoning rule requiring larger lot requirements for some of town's homes if they sit unoccupied for over six months. Many of the shotgun homes in question are currently unoccupied, though private owners are holding some in limbo.