07-09-18 Council Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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REGULAR MEETING July 9, 2018 particularly, give tax abatements to an organization that time and again has not fulfilled all of the obligations of the tax abatements they have gotten in the past. Sharon Banicki, 3822 Ford Street, South Bend, IN, stated, I just don't see how you can build fourteen (14) houses, over$3 million worth, which I think somebody said comes out to $270,000 for each house and put low-income people in there. The math doesn't work. I couldn't afford a $270,000 house and I'm middle income. I don't see how this works. The math just isn't there. Who is going to subsidize the rest of this house if you are putting poverty level people in there? If you can't put poverty level people in there, knowing that neighborhood like I do, you aren't going to get your Notre Dame professors living in those $270,000 homes because they are going to the triangle where they are safe because crime is so rampant in that area. Council President Tim Scott gave the floor back to the petitioner for rebuttal. Ms. Mannix replied, I can't speak about South Bend Heritage Foundation and the triangle neighborhood, but this is affordable rental housing. If we do not lease to low-income people that meet the income requirements,we will lose our tax credits and default and owe millions of dollars to our investors. So, we have the City of South Bend's commitments but also have Federal Tax commitments. We can't and will not default and lease to high-income people here. This is a cooperative and people pay monthly. You don't have to buy the$270,000 house to live there. How you can make the numbers work is that we are applying for tax credits. We are getting investments and equity investments of$11.9 million. The whole project costs $13 million and $11 million of that is an investor that we don't have to pay back. We don't have to borrow much money to make this work. That is how we can afford to put low-income people here. And finally I would like to say that the income limits for a family of six (6) may be $50,000 and for a family of two (2) it is around $14,000 and $20,000. You think of low-income and we are not leasing to people who are destitute. These are people that work and have jobs that don't make a lot of money for the most part. We will have a few seniors and few people that don't work in our existing homes so I don't think the traditional low-income stereotype applies to these homes. Councilmember Regina Williams-Preston stated, I just want to stand in strong support of this project. As I mentioned in Committee, this is something we have been working towards for the past year. With regard to our specific goal as a City of development without displacement to the point and the question of why we are concentrating low-income in one (1) area, knowing this neighborhood as I do and having grown up here, what we noticed is between the West Side Main Streets Plan and the assets currently in the neighborhood, this is a neighborhood that is ripe for gentrification. So it has been my personal goal and this is a step toward that. I want to make sure we secure certain parcels for low to moderate-income individuals and families. As Anne mentioned, this isn't for the folks who are necessarily below the Federal Poverty Line but this is the missing middle, the working poor that we talk about. There really isn't the support through Federal Programs and traditional Federal Programs so this is the private-public partnership stuff that really hits the people who work hard and are those legacy residents. This is an investment in our neighborhood to provide decent, safe and affordable housing right in those same neighborhoods that we have lived in for generations. We don't want to move. I'm very excited about this project. Again, for another reason, the way the investments are working out with when we are putting these houses on different streets, there needs to be $100,000 of improvement for the entire area. Streets, sidewalks and everybody will be helped in that area. Councilmember Regina Williams-Preston continued, Rest assured, we have been having these conversations with the people in the area for over the last year and a half. They are very excited about this and it is really stemming the engagement for all residents to know that this investment is happening. It doesn't just happen with the one (1) new construction, it is happening to all the areas around it. We are talking about all the home repair grants and the dollars put in through Community Investment for this year and the coming year,those are going toward a targeted pocket on the West Side to do exactly what you're talking about and the things you are concerned about. People are concerned about what happens to those homes and the legacy residents when these investments go in and they are getting dollars,targeted to them,to make sure that their home values increase as well and are improved alongside the new construction going in. So trust and believe that area and all around Lincoln Way is going to get a lot of new residents coming in. The West Side Main Streets Plan talks about moving incentives like moving within the radius of some of the 13