BLACKSBURG - Town officials presented a draft plan for a low-income housing development Monday afternoon to residents of the historic Roanoke-Lee street neighborhood and surrounding areas.

Town community development manager Darren Coffey presented a slide show including a site plan for the project to a half-dozen residents. The plan was put together by Colin Arnold, architect for Community Housing Partners, a local developer that specializes in low- and moderate-income housing. The plan, which Coffey referred to as "very preliminary," shows four duplexes on just over an acre of land at Prospect and Lee streets. The town has not yet closed the sale on the parcel shown in the site plan but hopes to soon, Coffey said.

Arnold's plan for the site, if it meets with public approval and can be built within budget, will serve as a model for a parcel the town recently bought at 508 Roanoke St. That half-acre parcel, which contains a condemned house and a wooded area, cost the town $95,000, about $7,000 more than its appraised value. Coffey said he hopes to house four families there.

"Land is the single most expensive part of the project," Coffey said.

To help make the new units affordable for people who make 80 percent or less of the median income, the town is using community development block grant funds and federal entitlement money to help buy the land.

Ideally, the project will house 12 families in six duplexes, each divided into two units owned by a low- to moderate-income family, according to the plan. Each unit will have a private driveway and a front porch facing the street.

At a project design meeting in May, residents of the Roanoke-Lee street area requested the driveways to reduce on-street parking. The six residents at that meeting also insisted on the front porches, which are common to many houses in the neighborhood.

At Monday's meeting, most residents echoed those preferences and asked that the duplexes be built to look more like single-family homes.

"We should try to look at those houses as individuals and find out what they need," said resident Donna Dunay.

None of the more than a dozen families who have expressed interest in applying to buy the units attended the meeting, Coffey said.

Dunay asked that the units have the same decorative detailing as other houses in the neighborhood, such as porch columns, varied roof lines and latticework.

"It's easy to make a fake; it's hard to make it authentic," she said.

She also argued for the addition of sheds to the properties. Sheds are a venerated tradition in the neighborhood, according to Dunay.

Coffey cautioned residents that some of the details may not be possible given the budgetary limitations.

"Even with the subsidies, we're pushing the purchase price," Coffey told the gathering. These houses will be bought by families earning less than $40,000 a year, he said.

Coffey hopes the houses will sell for $90,000-$140,000, but it's important to keep materials costs low to balance high land prices, he said.