Affordable house development in Brandon starts construction

Habitat for Humanity of Tampa Bay Hillsborough officially broke ground last week on a 23-home affordable housing community in Brandon.

The community is on Windhorst Road just off Parsons Avenue in the Tampa suburb. 

The houses in the project are being built with a resiliency feature: hurricane shutters. 

Habitat says Verizon provided the funding for the shutters and is also sponsoring a house for a woman and her two sons who lost their home in Hurricane Helene last year. 

Other resiliency features include block-on-block construction and Enhanced hurricane strapping.

Windhorst Commons, the development, is for people with incomes at or below 80% of the Area Median Income. 

It is being built with $1.4 million from Hillsborough County, which also provided $600,000 for infrastructure costs. 

The first home is expected to be completed in six months, with the entire neighborhood scheduled to be built by the end of 2026.