PAPILLION, Nebraska — Nebraska’s big demand for affordable housing calls for big ideas, and the new Tallgrass housing project in Sarpy County is one developer’s novel approach to helping fill that tall order.

Lincoln-based Hoppe Development started out with a blank 35-acre canvas on which it plans to grow an entire mixed-income neighborhood inside a more massive 440-acre multi-use development.

The private developer with help from a nonprofit partner will plant a variety of affordable housing types among Tallgrass’ 600 dwellings, which also will include market-rate housing for higher incomes. That feat required competitive applications to gain funding from multiple governmental and other sources.

But perhaps the most atypical element is the location — the Tallgrass neighborhood is rising in Papillion, a suburban city in one of the fastest-growing and wealthiest per capita counties of the state, rather than in a more common inner city setting where most housing for lower income residents is concentrated.

Jake Hoppe, the company’s chief executive, said the venture represents a newer approach to building affordable housing in Nebraska — one that integrates affordable units at a larger scale within a specially designed mixed-income suburban neighborhood. A similar Hoppe-led development targeting a residential range of incomes launched a couple of years ago in Lincoln.

Mixed-Income Success

His company points to research that shows lower-income families have greater success in breaking the cycle of poverty when living in an area with broader access to jobs, schools and opportunity, and amidst a mix of peers and lifestyles representing different levels of income.

Said company principal Fred Hoppe: “If we are going to address the affordable housing challenges of our communities, we have to build affordable housing at scale alongside market rate housing, in highly desirable areas of town with strong schools and supportive community infrastructure.”

Jake Hoppe is among a lineup of state and national experts set to speak — at a two-day Reignite2Unite symposium beginning June 4 — about successes and innovative efforts aimed at growing affordable and diverse housing across Nebraska.

Organized by the Omaha Municipal Land Bank, Spark CDI and Front Porch Investments, the conference at Omaha Marriott Downtown builds on the inaugural Reignite event last year, which offered tools and information to help emerging developers transform infill properties into community assets.

Leah Rothstein, a housing policy expert and co-author of “Just Action: How to Challenge Segregation Enacted under the Color of Law,” is a keynote speaker.

Rothstein collaborated with her father, Richard Rothstein, on the book that is a sequel to his “The Color of Law,” a groundbreaking history of how the U.S. government imposed racial segregation on neighborhoods nationwide.

In an interview with the Nebraska Examiner, Rothstein offered examples of policies that helped other communities improve access to affordable housing.

Among them: zoning reform that allows a broader range of housing sizes and types in a neighborhood; inclusionary housing policies that call for a certain percentage of new construction projects to be affordable; property tax abatements in return for affordable units, and nonprofit community land trusts that provide affordable housing in perpetuity by owning and leasing land to income-eligible people who live in houses built on the land.

Countering Segregation

This year’s conference comes as officials continue to address what’s been called a “crisis” shortage of affordable housing options in Nebraska, with too many households “cost-burdened” by spending more than 30% of their income on housing.

State officials have said rising housing costs have impacted the state’s competitive edge and hampered its ability to fill open jobs. A study led by the Nebraska Investment Finance Authority and released in 2023 identified a goal to create, by 2028, at least 35,000 affordable and attainable homes across the state for low- to middle-income earners, which authors said would reduce the number of needed housing units by about a third.

Rothstein said she was heartened to hear of the Tallgrass project she views as an inroad to counter segregation. Building affordable housing in suburban areas often faces the NIMBY (not in my backyard) battle from people who fear such projects could lower property values, she said.

In the case of Tallgrass, Hoppe said NIMBY so far has not been an issue, as the developer controls the tract on which it and partners have plotted out the mix and styles to blend as a neighborhood. He said a key was buying the large undeveloped property early on, allowing his team to design from the ground up.

“We’ll be our own neighbor,” he said.

Habitat for Humanity of Omaha, with a $7 million assist from Cobalt Credit Union, is partnering with Hoppe in building 30 for-sale row houses that Habitat will make available for income-eligible buyers at the Tallgrass site.

Habitat’s Lacey Studnicka, who also will speak at the Reignite event, said the nonprofit has a dominant presence in northeast Omaha but provides homeownership opportunities to lower income families in five counties. She said its first new-build project in Papillion came as home prices were rising and teachers, laborers and others were being priced out of the area.

“Partnering with Habitat for Humanity of Omaha to bring affordable housing to Sarpy County reflects our shared belief that everyone deserves a place to build their life and their dreams,” said Cobalt CEO Robin Larsen.

Site preparation also has started at Tallgrass for 198 rental units affordable to families at 60% of the area median income and below. Those dwellings are funded through the Low Income Housing Tax Credit program administered by NIFA and the Community Development Block Grant program administered by the Nebraska Department of Economic Development.

Ahead are other phases that include upscale market-rate apartments with a fitness center and swimming pool accessible to the whole development, as well as more for-sale homes funded in part by the Nebraska State Affordable Housing Trust Fund.

Page From Playbook

Hoppe said his team took a page from the playbook of purpose-built mixed-income housing areas steered by Seventy Five North and Canopy South. A difference is that those are inner city infill developments in the eastern part of Omaha, whereas Tallgrass took the model to a greenfield in the suburbs.

Helping get Tallgrass off the ground was an initial $2 million low-interest loan from the nonprofit Front Porch’s “innovation fund.” Hoppe said the boost triggered the purchase of land at Papillion’s 72nd Street and Capehart Road, inside the larger Oak Leaf subdivision.

At least one challenge, Hoppe said, is ensuring that supportive services are available for families that otherwise likely would live in older, more established neighborhoods, where child care options are more familiar and public transportation is more accessible.

He said his company has been exploring ways to respond to service gaps. A future elementary school “hopefully will be responsive to the needs of the neighborhood” as well. A commercial town center and walking trails also are planned.

The developer had looked at economically thriving Elkhorn as a potential site, but Hoppe said his team chose Papillion partly because of Amazon and other warehouse jobs available in the vicinity.

Judging from Hoppe Development’s similarly designed Lincoln Foxtail Meadows development — which is 650 units targeting a range of income levels and built in a cornfield near a church — Jake Hoppe anticipates a positive response and outcome for Tallgrass.

Each is expected to take five to seven years to build out.

“It’s been great,” he said of the first few phases so far in the Lincoln mixed-income neighborhood, supported by various state and federal affordable housing funds and city-approved tax-increment financing. “No one can tell who lives in an affordable or market rate unit.”

This story was published by Nebraska Examiner, an editorially independent newsroom providing a hard-hitting, daily flow of news. Read the original article: https://nebraskaexaminer.com/2025/06/03/big-demand-for-affordable-housin...