05-03-17 Community Relations - Laserfiche WebLink

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sometimes all a house needs is a little bit of paint to make it look a bit better. My recommendation is while we are looking at getting the houses and minority contractors, we also build something in to where the minority contractors can get the certifications they need to take advantage of being on these projects. Jack Jacobs, 223 E. Colfax Avenue, stated, What kind of policies can be implemented at a city or county level that have historically shown success in securing property values in city in the face of market fluctuations? I think the other speakers brought up some good points about the dangerous possibility of a market downturn which would put these neighborhoods completely feel underwater. We've seen it before. In addition to a program like this, which is pending a market study, I think there needs to be a discussion to see what other things could be paired with a program like this to secure property values. What sorts of policies could be implemented to direct supermarket development toward the edges of these areas to make them walkable, or to increase public transportation to these areas? These things are what hold property values in an area, aside from market boom-bust cycles. Conrad Damian, 718 E. Broadway Street, stated, I am a person who lives in an old house next to a new house. It was not built to fit into the neighborhood. I was very concerned about that for a long time until I got used to it. One (1) of the things I think is important is to fit the homes into the streets that they're on. 466 Works is building two (2)very appropriate houses in our neighborhood that will fit in with the architecture of the old houses. We have some streets that have bungalows and you wouldn't want to come in with a two (2) story house on a street that's full of bungalows. The same way with the streets in our neighborhood that are predominantly two (2) story homes, you would want to fit the property in and encourage the same kind of home-ownership. I know that there is a program given to the City that uses a few matrices to determine what the best use for the lot would be. I think that should be looked at for all the lots in the city. Some lots, the soil isn't appropriate and all of that is taken into account when deciding what to do with the lot. In our neighborhood, fifty-one percent(51%) of the homes are rentals. We are very concerned that will be stemmed. We need to sell homes that are already there to home-owners. It's very hard because a lot of the homes are selling for very cheap. It's difficult for people to get these homes. Jose Arevalo, 3809 Fellows Street, stated, I came to South Bend to work on a Masters for a couple of years and then I went back home to Texas. One (1)thing led to the next and I've been living here for more than twenty-six (26) years. I'm a real estate broker and we've had some conversation with Anne and Regina about this plan. The numbers are pretty interesting. What I would like to see is the City turn from new construction to a co-op program that has been developed. There's a lot of other new housing especially around the southern part of the city. I think a lot can happen with a little bit of rehab money. I'm not against this model, but there is another way to expand this to provide more housing opportunities for more people. If we take a budget of between $120,000 and$160,000 to rehab a house,that's quite a lot of money for a house. Considering that if we take $160,000 and break it into four(4)parts, that's $40,000. Up and down Elmer Street, as an example, working through the neighborhoods,we've rehabbed a number of houses with under$40,000 and each of those houses is a home to a good family. The one-thousand(1,000)homes in one-thousand(1,000) days project demolished over six-hundred (600) homes. That means there are six-hundred (600) families that can't live there because their 5