CHAPEL HILL -- Mariana Fiorentino had forgotten
about the crowning of a Realtor of the Year at the
Chapel Hill Board of Realtors' 50th anniversary fete
until she saw it in the program as she settled into her
seat at the Carolina Inn.
She made a mental note of who she thought it would
be, but when emcee Tom Heffner began lauding the
accomplishments of this year's winner, the description
sounded awfully familiar. Fiorentino's name was called,
and the hall erupted in applause.
"It was like a Cinderella night," Fiorentino said.
"They had roses for me. Afterward, all the people I've
known for years said such nice things."
As well they should. Fiorentino has done more than
most to create and encourage affordable housing -- she
prefers the term "workforce housing" -- in Chapel Hill
and Carrboro. Starting her third year as chair of the
Board of Realtors' Affordable Housing Committee, she has
drummed up enthusiasm for a cause that some seasoned
real estate agents have deemed futile. At some meetings
early on, she could count the number of committee
members on her thumbs, quite a contrast to the
enthusiastic agents who came to the first meeting of the
committee this year.
"In fairness, people have been discouraged," she
said. "What's the sense in meeting if there are no
affordable homes?"
Fiorentino has been attacking the problem on a number
of fronts since she began Terra Nova Global Properties
in 1996. For years she has served on the Carrboro
Downtown Development Commission and the board of Habitat
for Humanity. She co-chairs the Chapel Hill-Carrboro
Chamber of Commerce Council on Affordable Housing and
serves on the social concerns committee at the Unitarian
church she attends. With a voice in so many
organizations, she can be the thread that brings them
together, "so we aren't reinventing the wheel in each
committee," she said.
Jeff Rupkalvis, president of the Chapel Hill Board of
Realtors, considers Fiorentino "the adhesive in the
affordable housing committee year after year."
"She keeps them thinking progressively," Rupkalvis
said. "She presents to us what the issues are and what
she sees as solutions. That's unusual. A lot of people
just like to complain."
The committee has published a resource brochure for
agents and consumers and organized a symposium on
workforce housing.
"There are a lot of things we can do," Fiorentino
said, "and we need to focus on that as a community,
because it changes the whole fabric of a community if we
don't have a diversity of people who live here."
Diversity was part of the attraction when she moved
here from Pennsylvania in 1990 with her sons Matthew,
now 23 and a UNC grad who works with her at Terra Nova,
and Noah, now 21, soon to move back to the area after
graduating from a guitar-making school in Arizona. The
boys were young then, and she wanted a good place to
raise them. As the creator of the law-access loan, she
had traveled to many college communities around the
country, including UNC and Duke, to market it.
"I knew what was here versus Ann Arbor or Saratoga
Springs," she said. The strong real estate market helped
sway her decision. She got her real estate license
because she needed flexible hours to raise her boys, and
signed on with what was then Better Homes and Gardens
Howard Perry and Walston. Rupkalvis, then a rookie
Realtor, shadowed her to learn the business. When she
moved to Franklin Street Realty several years later, he
went with her, remaining there after she left to start
Terra Nova.
Fiorentino ran Terra Nova out of her garage for
several months until Bill Bracy of Arbor Realty offered
her the use of extra space in his office. At the time,
UNC was making a push to recruit associate professors,
and she was unable to offer those prospective homebuyers
much in the $150,000 to $200,000 range.
"We were losing people who would enrich our
community," she said. "If people reject us because they
can get better housing in Austin or Ithaca, it hurts the
quality of the university, too."
When a 20-acre parcel of land on the edge of downtown
Carrboro became available, she worked with the sellers
and architect John Felton, who was then with Lucy Carol
Davis' firm, to design Roberson Place, a walkable
community of townhouses and detached houses in a variety
of price points. Roberson Place, where she has her home
and office, opened in 1998.
Over the years Fiorentino continued to find land and
match it up with a developer who would agree with her
concept of what would work well in the space. Now
developers contact her to work with them on creative
projects.
"We are rapidly growing into a population of haves
and have nots," Rupkalvis said. "Mariana wants to close
that gap and make housing opportunities available to
everyone."
Terra Nova, having grown to nine real estate agents,
has three projects in the works that increase housing
diversity in downtown Carrboro. Twin Magnolias, just
west of the Thrift Shop, has 22 condo cottages, two per
building so that each unit is an end unit. Two of the
cottages are designated as affordable. Mulberry Street
Condos, off Pleasant Street, consists of four buildings
with three floor-through condos in each. The offices and
residences at 605 West Main make up Carrboro's first
mixed-use project.
Rick Williams of Williams Construction is the builder
of Twin Magnolias and has worked with Fiorentino on
several other projects. He said he has watched Carrboro
move in a direction similar to Chapel Hill in that it is
becoming too expensive for the people who work there to
live there.
"Mariana is the champion of the underdog," Williams
said. "She has always wanted to see what I call the
working stiffs have the opportunity to live in the
community where they work."
Through her work with the Downtown Development
Commission, Fiorentino is pushing to change ordinances,
such as the town's lengthy approval process.
"That discourages creative people who don't have deep
pockets from coming forth with wonderful projects," she
said. Increasing the efficiency of the approval process
may trim housing costs because developers won't have to
carry nonrevenue-producing land for as long.
On the lending font, she is promoting a federal
program called Smart Commute that boosts the monthly
income figures on loan applications of those buying a
home close to public transportation, making it that much
easier to get loan approval.
As co-chairs of the Chamber of Commerce's Council on
Affordable Housing, Fiorentino and Bob Knight, UNC's
assistant vice chancellor for finance and
administration, are developing a resource Web site and,
as an education tool, are producing profiles of people
who need workforce housing.
"She puts her money where her mouth is," Knight said.
"I've seen her reach into her own pocket and help
someone who fell through the cracks. She is very
dedicated to this."
And she is picking the brains of the New York State
Association of Realtors to organize a continuing
education class to educate real estate agents about
workforce housing. Fiorentino met the New York members
on a trade mission to Italy to study how Americans can
buy property overseas. She has her international real
estate license and serves on the international advisory
council for the National Association of Realtors. She is
in the final phases of applying for Italian citizenship.
Acquiring dual citizenship will honor her family roots.
Though she talks of setting up a bed-and-breakfast in
Italy, she can't see retiring from real estate.
"Real estate is a service industry, not a sales
industry," Fiorentino said. "It is a real privilege to
find people a place where they will live and raise
families."
