AUBURN – Housing volunteers have their eyes on a city parcel on Hampshire Street parcel for their next Habitat for Humanity project.

The charity group hopes to begin work on a single-family home next spring at 133 Hampshire St. That’s a lot taken over by the city for past due property taxes several years ago. An abandoned building on the lot was demolished six years ago, according to Community Development Coordinator Reine Mynahan.

Mike Carey, a volunteer board member of Androscoggin Habitat for Humanity, said it’s just the kind of lot the group wants.

“It’s a big enough lot, appropriate for a single-family home, and it’s already set up for city water and sewer,” he said. “We’d able to build it for a lot less money because of that.”

The group will meet with the Auburn City Council at the Oct. 6 meeting to discuss purchasing the 0.11 acre lot. It’s valued at $20,100, according to the city.

It would be the 15th project Habitat for Humanity has built in Androscoggin County in the past 19 years. Most recently, the group built a home on a vacant Golder Road lot in Lewiston. The project drew 100 volunteers last year, with work finishing and family occupying it in December.

Carey said the charity group working on two parts of the project right now: finding the appropriate lot to build and finding a family for the home.

“We have a waiting list of people who want our help and a committee that will meet with every family on that list,” Carey said. The family that eventually gets the house has to repay a 30-year mortgage to Habitat for Humanity and must put in at least 300 hours of work building the house.

“This is a hand-up program, not a hand out,” Carey said. “They have to participate the entire time.”

The beneficiaries of the project should be selected over the winter, he said, in time to begin work on project next spring.

Some of the money to cover construction costs comes from special projects, including a golf tournament, and donations from individuals and businesses. The group is also requesting a $20,000 loan from the city’s HOME program. That’s part of federal Housing and Urban Development grant the city receives.

“That money would pretty much cover framing the building and the roof,” Carey said.