Two new homes are going up on Pleasant Street this week in Covington, the physical manifestation of one local solution to the region’s housing shortage.
“The vision for Pleasant Street has always been to create quality homes that working families can afford while strengthening an established neighborhood,” said Brandon Holmes, head of the city’s Neighborhood Services Department.
Holmes is also the chair of Covington’s nonprofit housing subsidiary, Neighborhood Investment partners, which is installing the prefabricated homes.
The homes are made in a factory but designed to stay in a fixed location, unlike mobile homes. The installation is expected to be completed by Friday, according to Holmes.
Click here to read more about Northern Kentucky’s housing shortage
Melissa Kelley is the chair of the Eastside + neighborhood association which she said had been lobbying the city to construct subsidized housing, rather than market-rate housing, in the neighborhood.
While she said the houses weren’t going to be accessible to people with very low incomes, “it’s still a good thing,” she said.
“We’re very happy about it,” Kelley said, adding the city had been very open to listening to the neighborhood’s desires and goals. “It’ll be good for the neighborhood.”
The homes will be marketed to local buyers who meet specific income criteria as part of the city’s ongoing efforts to address affordable housing shortages.
Once completed, the two houses will share a driveway and will blend in with the area’s other homes.
The new homes, both of which have three bedrooms and three bathrooms and will span about 1,560 square feet, will be restricted to buyers who make a maximum of $87,900 per year for a family of four, according to HUD.
Depending on their situations, buyers may also be eligible for a low-interest, forgivable loan from the Northern Kentucky HOME Consortium to help cover down payment and closing costs. You can learn about that program here.
Making housing more affordable has been a priority of Mayor Ron Washington since he took office in 2025.
“We need to grow our population, and we need to provide within reason places for people to live in our community,” Washington told the Latonia Business Association in March 2025.
The city established a committee on affordable housing in May of that year to consider the problem, including how to possibly reuse or resell the city’s vacant lots and (often abandoned) city-owned properties.
Pleasant Street in the Eastside neighborhood has historically been the site of multiple city-owned properties. The Covington Board of Commission OKed the demolition of three city-owned properties last year. Holmes told the city commissioners at the time the demolitions aimed “to clear the way for future development on those sites and to clear the way for future homeowners.”
Additionally, the city put out a call for development proposals for about 30 city-owned vacant lots in April of this year.
The new prefab homes will be installed at 304 Pleasant St. and 308 Pleasant St., neither of which had been stamped for demolition in 2025, but the city intends to install five more homes on the northern side of the block later this year as the second part of the project.
The third phase of the project, according to a city press release, will develop “the remaining vacant lots on the southern side of the block” and “is expected to begin this fall, with construction anticipated to start in spring 2027.” Overall, the city hopes to develop 15 new homes throughout the neighborhood.
