It took four years, but Wheatland has five new homes.

"It was a good project," said borough Mayor Tom Stanton. "It worked."

With little new home construction in the borough in 20 years, council decided to undertake some, starting the process by applying for grant money, lining up partners to do things the borough was not allowed or unable to do and donating the land.

It also undertook what has become a bureaucratic nightmare as the project brought together numerous funding sources with their own sets of guidelines to follow, and a narrow scope of preferred buyers.

With three of the homes occupied, one sale pending and another house available, Mercer County Housing Authority Executive Director L. DeWitt Boosel took stock of the project for council Tuesday.

"We accomplished a lot of the goals that we set," he said. "We wanted to build homes that blend into the community. We wanted to give preference to Wheatland families or people displaced by the tornado."

The authority’s non-profit entity, Community Homebuyers Inc., developed the property and is selling the homes.

The project was funded by county, state and federal agencies, and a coalition of banks that have signed onto CHI’s mission, which sometimes led to delays.

"Each of them had their own approval process," Boosel said. "We didn’t have the final say."

The project could lose a federal grant because of one of the goals it set: selling the homes to people with low and moderate incomes.

The goals were based on the federally set median income. For a family of four, the median income is $37,600. The project set a goal of selling two homes to people who earn no more than 50 percent of the median -- $18,800 in the family-of-four scenario -- and three who earn no more than 60 percent, $22,560.

"It’s hard to make someone within the 50 percent median income bankable," Boosel said.

The authority received 80 inquiries about the homes, but many who sat down to look at the feasibility of buying one didn’t meet the income guidelines, said James A. Gutowski, vice president and community development outreach manager of National City Bank.

Those who met income guidelines couldn’t get loans, he said.

"If you’ve got a car payment and a credit card payment and any other debt, you don’t qualify," he said.

The preference for buyers who have a Wheatland connection made it even more difficult to find qualified applicants, he said.

The Federal Home Loan Bank is threatening to pull back the $30,000 it had promised because the goals are not being met on the terms set in the application.

Gutowski said he has sent information on the three families who have bought homes and two possible buyers so that FHLB can judge the project’s success itself. One sales agreement is already in place, with closing held up until the issue is resolved.

The federal money was to be used for closing cost and down payment assistance. The banks have fronted the money and if the federal grant does not come through, the authority will have to decide how they will get their money back.

"The process is complicated, no doubt about it -- more complicated than a normal mortgage because of all the grants involved," said CHI’s Debbi Paul, who worked with potential homeowners on credit issues and application guidance.

"This has been a very involved project, from beginning to end," said Julie Widel, assistant director of Mercer County Regional Planning Commission. "It was something we had never done before and we learned a lot. I don’t think the funding sources are used to working together. We’re got all the houses up and all the roads and sewers are in."

Boosel said the authority would like to undertake similar projects, particularly if it can take advantage of economies of scale by building more than one house at a time.

"This was a unique circumstance because of the land available and the borough’s involvement," he said.

For all the bureaucracy, funding questions and delays, Boosel could point to a significant achievement to motivate future endeavors.

"We’ve got five homes that will be paying full taxes."