Friday, June 25, 2010

$23 million won't make one little dent


"On January 14, 2010, HUD awarded a combined total $1.93 billion in NSP 2 grants to 56 grantees nationwide. This includes 33 consortiums at a regional level and four national consortiums carrying out activities in target areas throughout the country. These grantees were selected on the basis of foreclosure needs in their selected target areas, recent past experience, program design and compliance with NSP2 rules." The City of Lake Worth was awarded $23.2 million.

Saying that Lake Worth is "not in need of affordable housing," Commissioner Scott Maxwell encouraged home ownership at Tuesday's joint Community Redevelopment Agency and City Commission meeting at Compass. He stressed Code Enforcement as the turn-around. I agree.

I stayed home to listen and the audio went out after 30 minutes never to come back up. This was unfortunate and these "technical difficulties" are happening with frequency it seems.

At the June 1st meeting, (backup consists of 533 pages to download before you can even read the stuff) the City Commission "conveyed" 3 properties to the CRA:

25 S. F, 325 N. D and 331 S. E Streets, according to Ms. Oliva, Director of the CRA. Two of them will be used for affordable housing and one for qualified working artists. This was on the agenda as a Resolution 08-2010 under Public Hearings.

The five properties that the CRA wants in addition to the above are:

Approved for the NSP2 Grant
328 N. C
225 S. E
626 S. E

Approved for Cultural Renaissance
902 N. C
107 N. B (was on the market for $35,000)-->

I have to admit that I don't understand this Grant. I do not believe, for one moment, that the rehabilitation of 130 houses will make any dent in the blight problem we have...not one little dent. The rehab of 130 houses will NOT revive the neighborhood and will not stabilize it, as Mayor Varela suggested unless all 130 houses were on the same contiguous blocks, not spread out all over the CRA district.

The CRA has $23.2 million...sounds like a small fortune to me. Why then did the City not sell these houses, no matter the sales price or value, to the CRA, not just elect to give assets away? Walking into City Hall on Wednesday evening I ran into Commissioner Maxwell and he said, "Because of the way that the Grant was written, the City can't sell any properties to the CRA to be used in this NSP2 grant." In addition, the CRA has NO money but they are "buying up properties" according to this week's Lake Worth Herald. The money that the City could have made from the sale of these properties would have paid for Phase I of the Casino project.

The rehabilitation of 130 homes will not eliminate blight in our City. What might possibly eliminate blight in a section of our City would be to take one neighborhood, street by street, clean up the landscaping per lot, paint the house and do some cosmetic and minor repairs...get them spruced up...allot $20,000 per house and you could cover 1,000 houses, not 130, but the Grant was not written this way. The Buyer then purchases a "fixer upper" for a small sales price with the guarantee that he will actually live in the house. It will create affordable housing, something of which we are not short, and help a few people own a home.

So, who benefits? Tax dollars from anything in the CRA District does not come back to the City. We have already said fixing up 130 houses will not do it. The city will not benefit in any way. The CRA gets all of the tax benefit. Right now, we need operating dollars. Why do we continue to GIVE THINGS AWAY?

Not understanding our 100+ surplus property inventory and why we have been sitting on these properties for years, I still can't help but ask, why can't' we and why haven't we sold them and why haven't we taken the necessary actions to do so? If we couldn't sell them in this down market or because of their deplorable condition, why did we not demolish them and sell the land to a developer? Anything is better than sitting there with inventory that is continually getting in worse condition and beyond value.

This comes back in July for the Commissions' vote.

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