Imagine a vibrant inner-city Columbia, where housing is in high demand, wealthy people live next to poor people and corner grocery stores and other neighborhood services abound.

That is Mayor Darwin Hindman’s vision, and he hopes the newly formed Columbia Housing Authority Housing Task Force can unite people to work toward that goal.

While the second phase of the group’s charge could address Hindman’s vision through an inner-city housing plan for all income levels, the first part of its mission is focused on finding ways to create homeownership opportunities for housing authority residents.

Richard Mendenhall, who is leading the task force, said providing opportunities for residents to build equity could help lead many to financial independence. "The Columbia Housing Authority’s main mission is to manage public housing," he said. "But we’re not talking about traditional public housing at all."

The task force is studying the feasibility of forming a partnership with a private developer to build single-family homes. Mendenhall said he has met with a developer who, using state and federal tax credits, has built homes, rented them to low-income families for some period - usually 15 years - then sold the houses to the families for a fraction of the original price.

Mendenhall has a meeting with another developer on Tuesday. Meanwhile, the task force is investigating options for financing and is looking for sites where homes could be built.

Doris Chiles, executive director of the housing authority, said that as the authority’s waiting list approached and eclipsed 200 people it became clear it was time to look at adding units. Incorporating ownership options seemed a natural fit.

"It appears there may be a need for more affordable housing," she said. "But we’re not interested in large buildings with a lot of units."

Hindman said that while the approach the task force has charted sounds good, he hopes it will move quickly toward considering the whole central city area.

"Some of the areas close to downtown, such as North Eighth Street and Sexton Road, are really great areas," Hindman said. "But they’re being underutilized and undervalued. We need to find ways to get more mixed-income housing toward the center of town. Living near the center of Columbia should be one of the aspirations of a huge number of people."

Hindman said he’s visited several places with bustling inner cities, where people from all socioeconomic backgrounds work, shop, have fun and, most important, live together.

"Much of the current thinking, that you can’t have mixed incomes live together, is just wrong," he said, noting that the tradition of pushing growth to the fringes raises costs for everyone. "One of my goals is to do what we can about urban sprawl by making people want to live in the core of this city. As we all know, it’s much cheaper to provide services to the core than outlying edges."

Hindman said that building only low-income housing wouldn’t help reach the goal. He said that nice townhouses or condos could attract higher-income people and stores that are less car-centered and more neighborhood-friendly could thrive in rejuvenated areas.

"I think the time has come we get away from this business of huge areas in the downtown area with nothing but low-cost housing," Hindman said. "I think the Columbia Housing Authority needs to play a very important role in it. It’s going to require a lot of creative thinking."