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OFFICE OF THE CITY CLERK
KAREEMAH FOWLER,CITY CLERK
COMMUNITY RELATIONS MAY 3, 2017 6:00 P.M.
Committee Members Present: Regina Williams-Preston, Karen White (late)
Committee Members Absent: Gavin Ferlic, Randy Kelly
Other Council Present: John Voorde, Jo M. Broden(late), Oliver Davis (late)
Other Council Absent: Tim Scott, Dr. David Varner
Others Present: Graham Sparks (partial), Kareemah Fowler (partial),
Alkeyna Aldridge (partial)
Presenters: Anne Mannix
Agenda: New Development in South Bend-Neighborhood
Development Associates
Miscellaneous
Committee Chair Regina Williams-Preston called to order the Community Relations Committee
meeting at 6:00 p.m. She introduced members of the committee as well as the presenter for the
meeting. She went on to discuss the agenda of the meeting and briefly mentioned the topics of
affordable housing, diversity, and inclusivity. She then gave the floor to the presenter of the
evening.
New Development in South Bend -Neighborhood Development Associates
Annie Mannix,Neighborhood Development Associates, stated, My job is to help people find
money so they can realize their idea of what kind of housing they want. I work with the church
and `466 Works.' They have a community development group that wanted money to build two
(2) houses. The City was gracious enough to give the money to be able to build them. Then
another church came to me wanting to build two (2) more houses and it seemed to me that doing
two (2)houses at a time wouldn't get us where we need to go. So then I thought we should create
a program called one-hundred (100) houses in five-hundred (5 00) days. This is a plan, it is not a
formed project so we do not have any financial commitment. This is a dream at this point. We
have a whole team of people working on it. We have the Near Northwest Neighborhood working
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on it,we have the South Bend Heritage Foundation, 466 Works, and other individuals who want
to get on board with the idea.
Councilmembers Jo M. Broden and Karen White arrived at the meeting at 6:07 p.m.
Ms. Mannix continued, One (1) of the factors that need to be considered when we are trying to
figure out what we want to do with neighborhoods are a lot of vacant lots. There are a lot of
neighborhoods with more vacant lots than there are houses. There are also a lot of small old
houses that need repair. Houses that are buyable, but have much work that needs to be done, are
right now undesirable to purchase. Many people want two (2) car garages and two (2)
bathrooms. There is not an easy path to buying a simple house. The newspaper recently said we
have a hot real estate market with a shortage of houses from $100,000 to $200,000. There are a
lot of inexpensive houses and a lot of expensive houses, and not a whole lot in the middle. A lot
of the Westside Neighborhoods have good and solid homeowners. Every neighborhood has solid
homeowners that keep it together. We have a lot of community groups that are holding lots.
South Bend Heritage has thirty-five (35) vacant lots. The City funds are very limited. They are
doing the best they can but revenue streams keep getting cut. So we are waiting for City plans.
We got through one-thousand(1000) houses in one-thousand(1000) days, what is the next step?
This is the next step suggestion. Downtown development is going very well. Smart Streets are
wrapping up. Where do we go next?My suggestion is we have a balanced neighborhood
program that serves all kinds of residents. It should have mixed-income,racial balance, different
family size and types. We need houses for families and maybe some apartments for middle
income people. A lot of neighborhoods need owner-occupied rehabilitation. We are trying to get
the maximum use of state funds, local funds and private money to try and balance the
neighborhoods. We don't want to have one (1) good neighborhood and neglect all the rest. The
first idea we had was to build one-hundred(100) houses for homeowners in five-hundred (500)
days. It is a little aggressive. The first thing we need to do is a market study, and that will cost
less than $10,000 and will help us look at the trends to see what we are up against. We will
identify clusters of lots so we avoid going into a neighborhood and building one (1)nice house
around the other older houses. The map in the presentation(which can be accessed in the City
Clerk's Office) is just a draft map of what we are talking about. We would like to have five (5)
lots in an existing area. We want houses that are good, sellable, and that will last. We don't want
anything in a floodplain or in a wetland. We don't want the houses to be adjacent to railroad
tracks. We don't want environmental issues. This is just a draft. We would ask the contractors to
get some house plans to put on the website. The idea would be anyone could go to the website
and say `I want this house,this lot,this contractor.'
Ms. Mannix continued, I encourage minority employees and contractors and want to get them to
provide service. We are looking for homeowners that qualify for a$100,000 loan. They can
select their own and we will not have any income limits. One (1)problem is people may want to
buy the house that is a little bit too much money. We could tier the houses so thirty-three (33)
houses are within the $34,000 to $48,000 tier,the next thirty-three (33) are in the $48,000-
$68,000 tier and the last thirty-three houses are $68,000 and up. Financing is a big stickler. We
are going to ask people to get a first mortgage, a regular bank mortgage for the appraised value
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of the house. One (1)problem is we can't get the houses to appraise because there are no
neighbors. We would ask the City to put in$6 million total, $3 million a year. That's a lot of
money but there are many benefits and many ways to administer this.Now the question becomes
how we will find these lots. We will have a committee sit down and look for and approve the
lots. Then we will have a website. We will also need a marketing campaign for South Bend. The
bank will administer the construction draws and we will also need to have home-owner training.
Committee Chair Williams-Preston stated, This project would address the affordable housing
issue and would also close that gap due to lack of resources. It also addresses the issue of
minority contracting. We talk a lot about getting minority businesses involved and this does
exactly that.
Committeemember Karen White mentioned, The impact of one-thousand (1000) homes in one-
thousand(1000) days has had a certain impact on certain neighborhoods, and now this addresses
the infill of that impact.
Committee Chair Williams-Preston then opened the floor to members of the public to speak to
the concept of one-hundred (100) homes in five-hundred (5 00) days.
Samuel Brown, 222 E. Navarre Street, stated, There are younger kids coming back into the city
that are pushing older people out. I don't understand how we can get money for certain things
but not get it for other things like this. What about the people that can't afford a home? What are
they going to do? The City has limited funds to help them so I don't know where we are going
with this. Downtown is dead but the Council has put light back into the downtown. How many
minorities do we have downtown, one (1)? Two (2)? This housing thing is a bad situation. I
don't have the answer but apparently you don't either. There is no way a minority contractor can
compete with the others.
Ms. Mannix stated, It is very difficult to buy lots because people are holding them. One (1)thing
this project can do is get one-hundred (100) lots that people can buy and actually use. It doesn't
help anything if people are just holding on to these vacant lots and it doesn't help the City grow.
I hope we can get the lots and make them easy for people to buy. I think we do need affordable
housing. That isn't the issue we are talking about but that is an issue we need to work on, as well
as rehabilitation.
Drew Duncan, 2023 Miami Street, asked, What type of research has there been to see the effect
these homes will have on the surrounding property values? The average income in South Bend is
$30,000 and I don't know how anyone making that much will be approved for a$120,000 loan.
Creative financing is very volatile, especially for land-contracts. We have to understand all the
side-effects of this possibility. There needs to be a lot more research before this is done.
Verna Anderson, 1125 Cleveland Avenue, stated, I live over by the Muessel School. The area
over there is really bad due to houses not being fixed or being just abandoned by the landlords.
But what about people in the neighborhood that have been there for twenty (20) or(30) years
that still want to live there?They know people that may need a house or single parents that need
a house. Their credit may not be good enough. Would this program help people with poor credit
to get good enough credit to buy these houses?
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Myles Robertson, 620 Clint Street, stated, I own a house and moved in a couple years ago. I was
out of town last week and I saw this and was excited. It's so early on in this process that right
now we have to be optimistic. Housing is definitely an issue in the community but I continue to
see the City and private investors invest in the wealthiest people in our community. I understand
the reasons behind that, a lot of it is just strict economics. I like that this is a more community
driven thing. I just want to say that as a home owner with abandoned lots around their house,
from the City's perspective I think that an investment in this way is actually a really good
investment for other homeowners living in these neighborhoods. If there is a vacant lot and a
new house is built there, the property value of the home will probably go up. I think that is a
good thing. This is a sound investment in retaining certain people in this community. I also am
wondering if there are opportunities of buying existing houses. Or, is this just building new ones
on vacant lots?
Miran McKinu, 23528 Breadwood Drive, Elkhart, stated, I'm more concerned with the
contractors of these projects. I'm a small minority contractor out of Elkhart. I'm in the process of
trying to transfer my license to up here in South Bend. How much of the money from these
houses will stay in the community? How many minority workers will have the opportunity to
work on some of these projects?
Marguerite Taylor, 714 E. Corby Boulevard, stated, I've come here to ask you to look at the
Northeast Neighborhood. We don't have many houses. The house across the street from me is on
the market for $799,000. It was built by Clay High School. The house on the other side is selling
for $900,000. We don't have any real income houses to live in today. Please think about our
neighborhood.
Kelly Hoggard, 735 Huey Street, stated, I would like to remind everybody that about two (2)
months ago we had that person from Cleveland here for the Democracy Coalition who gave a
presentation about developing depressed neighborhoods in town. At that time, we kicked around
the idea of creating these urban farms. This plan is still in the works. There will have to be real
estate acquisition. I've taken quite the time to examine these vacant lots. We all know the Near
Northwest Neighborhood organization is a very organized neighborhood association. They are
able to secure funding,rehabilitate homes, they have a minimal amount of vacant lots. Those
vacant lots would be prime to build these homes because they would be in areas where the real
estate value would be similar. However on the west part of town, there are a ton of vacant lots
that are contiguous to each other. There are other vacant lots in between homes. I would suggest
that if you do identify lots,that you try and find lots in-between homes. If you see massive areas
that are open areas, don't go create a home on that area because that would take away the land
from the potential urban farmers that we want to develop. I see more of a need for economic
development than I do this housing plan. There are homes for sale and places to rent already.
They are here. We still want to keep some land available for these urban farms.
Barbara Turner, 908 N. Elmer Street, stated, My concern is for the houses that would be next to
the houses being built. My recommendation is to provide asset comfort and support to the houses
that will be next to the houses being built. I have a passion for renovating houses. I have a
passion for helping the low-income live in better situations. Paint is not too expensive and
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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
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homes have been taken away. It's important to understand that once you take away people's
housing, they can't live there anymore. The Trail of Tears one-hundred and eighty(180) years
ago started right here and ended up in Oklahoma. The consequence is that people are hurt. Those
people tend to be people with lower incomes,people of color and those with fewer resources. If
we are rebuilding a city together, it's not just about condos downtown. It's not about new houses
in Granger. It's about reinvesting city tax money into housing that helps more people. If we take
certain houses, a lot can happen with$40,000 and can be reasonable housing for people that are
responsible and that keep up their home.
Linda Wolfson, 809 Park Avenue, stated, I want to thank Regina and the Council for listening to
all of the things that have been said. I agree with a lot but I disagree with some of what's been
said. There are many different perspectives. At the beginning of Anne's talk, she said we need
new housing,rehab housing, and owner-occupied rehab. I think it is a really big mistake to take a
problem as important as housing and call one (1)plan affordable. Affordable means many
different things to a lot of different people because we all make different amounts of money. I
appreciate a city that is looking more like Ann Arbor, but it doesn't fit my needs. Everyone has
different needs. To maintain areas of our city where only a certain type of person lives is a
mistake. Housing is the big problem. We need several solutions,not just one (1) solution. There
is a hearing coming up about the budget. I think we need to say we need good housing for all.
Some people need good rental housing. Some people need good small houses. I run into students
all the time that are through college, they've got jobs,they have a need to stay in this community
and live as a family. I don't think it's smart to cut off one (1)type of housing.
Penny Hughes, 1918 Southern View, stated, I've been a realtor for forty(40) years and an
investor for forty-two (42) years in this community. I've rehabbed close to eighty(80)homes in
my time. It's wonderful to be able to provide decent and nice housing for people, whether they
are going to rent it or turn around and buy it. We have a real estate investors group called Real
Estate Investors Association in central Indiana. These are professional people that every year,
they do one (1) or two (2) homes and fix them up, rehab them, sell them or rent them out if they
can. It would be nice, since banks don't like to make loans under$40,000, if the City could direct
some of the funding they have to being a Direct-Entitlement City for some of these projects.
Joe Taylor III, 217 Parkwood Lane, stated, I was born and raised on the southeast side of the
City. I must say it is a neighborhood that does not resemble the way it was when I grew up. I
have a couple questions. Mr. Taylor asked if he could be provided with a copy of the
presentation,to which he was reminded it was available in the City Clerk's Office. He then
continued, I want to thank Regina and the other Council members that have showed up. I
appreciate and applaud the idea. I understand there are some obstacles and concerns for
everybody that will be affected. The reason I say that is because in my elected position of State
Representative of District 7, 1 was appointed to the Family and Children Services Committee.
And there is only so much the State can do, especially in a budget year like this. But hearing so
many testimonies from people trying to get out of the cycle of poverty, I understand what is
trying to happen. I also echo the concern about minority work. When it comes to work my
question is: Can it be mandated that there be some sort of percentage put in place for the work
being done by minority contractors? I also like the idea that there are already houses that are
affordable, but may just need a little work.
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Jesse Davis, P.O. Box 10205, stated, I'm all for housing. I'm all for housing the average worker
and the lower-class people, but these price ranges are certainly not going to cater to those people.
I've talked to numerous people that have gone through extremely extensive application processes
to get into some of the co-op affordable homes. I've done a lot of work in the houses over by the
YWCA. The problem is that these homes may be bought for$165,000, but they will only market
for$75,000. It's not going to do us a bit of good to put those kinds of homes in neighborhoods
that the average home on market is $50,000 or$55,000. There are a lot of questions that go
unanswered in the City. For one (1), the Heritage Foundation had three (3) homes that$500,000
of tax money went into. I asked questions about where that money came from and I got different
answers. Economic development should mean to maintain and grow the tax base. We don't do
that. We give out free tax dollars like candy. I just don't get it, it is not fiscally responsible. It
seems to me that the City is catering to the people that can't afford the $300,000 homes and
condos.
Councilmember Oliver Davis arrived at the meeting at 7:23 p.m.
Committee Chair Williams-Preston, stated, This is my passion. Development is coming to the
west side. My focus is to make sure people on the west side benefit and participate in and from
the development. This is not the only answer but this is one (1)piece that is missing that no one
is talking about for those folks in the middle. If we don't come together and do something, we
will all be gone. Development is coming. If we are not intentional in our efforts, gentrification
will continue to happen. There is a five (5) step plan to acquire and consolidate parcels. This is a
conversation to make sure we can do this. There will be new houses and we are trying to give
people the opportunity to invest in their own neighborhood. This particular project is not the
whole thing. There's been a lack of investment for so long that once it comes up, many people
start asking a lot of questions. That is what this conversation is about. We need minority
contractors on these projects. That's why we are having this conversation. We can't just do
rehab. We can't just do community gardens. We can't just do building. We have to be strategic.
We need to build around schools. We will have more conversation. This is the very beginning.
We need ideas and we will talk to the administration. We are asking for$6 million that will help
one-hundred (100) families. We also voted to give $5 million to one (1) investor that is building
luxury apartments that none of us can afford. There are a lot of resources out there, but some
folks don't know about them. It's not about one (1)program fixing the problem, it is about
layering the resources. It's not one (1) or the other, the investment has to come from many
different forms.
Ms. Mannix stated, I care very much about affordable housing. Mutual Homes has twenty-four
(24) families living in it with eighty-two (82) families on the waiting-list. I know there is great
need for affordable housing. I also think there's owner-occupied rehab needed and we need to
get all the programs together. The average monthly payment for these houses would be around
six-hundred and fifty-six dollars ($656) which is honestly cheaper than what most people pay in
rent. Also,people won't be paying more than the appraised value of the home, so there should be
no worry of getting under water.
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Charlotte Pfeifer, 1013 W. Washington Street, stated, The administration puts the budget
together, but Council passes it. I would love to see a commitment from Council that you will not
pass a budget that does not have money in it for our neighborhoods. We must hold our
administration accountable for our budgeting. I would like to see the administration and the
legislative branch work together.
Councilmember Davis stated, And it's not even just putting the money into the budget. It is a
matter of putting enough money into it. I voted against the budget last year and plan to again this
year if there isn't enough money in it for neighborhoods, Transpo and housing development.
Kevin Hoggard, 125 W. Marion Street, stated, In the presentation,the $6 million number was
given. Divide that amongst one-hundred(100)homes, that's a lot.
Councilmember Davis stated, We are glad to start these conversations and to be asking these
questions early before the budget season.
Carrie Casey, 421 Manitou Place, stated, We need a new core of young people of color doing
these contracting jobs.
Miran McKinu reproached the podium to briefly describe his process of becoming a licensed
minority contractor.
With no further business to discuss, Committee Chair Williams-Preston adjourned the
Community Relations Committee meeting at 7:46 p.m.
ectfully Submitted,
R n Williams-Preston, Chairperson
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