County provides assistance for ‘Project 601’

Donations pour in for family to pay mortgage and other costs for ‘Extreme Makeover’ home

Planning and approvals moved quickly through the process after producers held their first meeting with the county in late May. County officials walked them through the permitting process, visited the site just outside of Poolesville on Jerusalem Church Terrace where the new house was to be built and coordinated police and fire and rescue crews to monitor construction, said Scott Reilly, Chief Operating Officer for the county’s Department of Housing and Community Affairs.

A month later, the family that had been living in a hotel in Gaithersburg moved into the 4,887-square-foot house.

‘‘We were reviewing a lot of plans very early on and preparing to issue the building permit as soon as it came in,” Reilly said Monday. Since the show is predicated on being a surprise to the family, the county agreed to keep the permits confidential until the family was announced, he said.

‘‘They went through the process like anybody else,” said Susan Scala-Demby, permitting services manager for the Department of Permitting Services. ‘‘We made no exceptions.”

The permits and plans, including permits for public sewer and to move the well, were all approved June 21 and made public the next day.

‘‘Permitting staff was available on two hours notice literally any time during the day,” Reilly said, noting that construction was around the clock and staff rearranged schedules so there was no overtime.

‘‘We don’t have an idea yet as the county costs,” he said. ‘‘We were able to do some things. We waived tipping fee at the solid waste tipping station,” where the house that was demolished last week was dumped.

He said the county is tracking the costs for providing police and fire and rescue staff on site for the week. There were more than a dozen county police at the site on Sunday, when the family saw the house for the first time.

Affording the house

The house that once stood on the Jerusalem Church Terrace property, a two-story, 1,032-square-foot home built in 1950 was assessed at $201,600 as of July 1, according to property tax records. Some states, including New Jersey, have chosen to freeze the property assessment at its value before the renovation, said the show’s senior producer Diane Korman. ABC did not make that request of the Maryland Department of Assessments and Taxation, she said.

A representative from the department did not return a call seeking comment.

‘‘We didn’t make any commitment on property taxes, we made no provisions on utilities,” said Patrick K. Lacefield, spokesman for County Executive Isiah Leggett (D).

Housing and Community Affairs provided the family a 12-month, $198,000 loan on April 3 for the purchase of the Jerusalem Church Terrace property, which a bank had foreclosed last year.

‘‘They had been in our homeless system for a while,” Reilly said. ‘‘We assisted them in finding a property in foreclosure, we made money available for the purchase of the property.”

Community donations in the last week include $50,000 toward the down payment, $22,000 for utilities, money for college funds and a new van, Lacefield said.

The loan was conditioned on bringing the property ‘‘up to standards for habitation,” he said.

Susan Eleff, an attorney with Ballard Spahr in Bethesda, said the county contacted the firm in April to represent the family’s interests in the home’s purchase.

Eleff, who is working pro bono, also represented the family through the contract process with ABC. She set up a trust so donations will be monitored.