03-21-18 Residential Neighborhoods

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®CITY OF SOUTH BEND I OFFICE OF THE CLERK Committeemember Jo M. Broden asked, Looking at page eight (8), how did you determine those areas? Is it a distance from downtown? Ms. Volk replied, Basically what I did was look at the next neighborhoods going out from the downtown. It was also important to note and support the rehab already done in these study areas. We didn't include the northeast sector because there is already a presence of homebuilding there. The next step, from this,would be even the next ring of neighborhoods. Committeemember Broden followed up, These areas are relative to downtown but what is important, from your work in other areas, aside from housing? What are the other takeaways? Ms. Volk replied, Well, other cities we work in don't have a University or other industries for employment. Housing is economic development. Sometimes, it is far more difficult to get commercial uses into a neighborhood, particularly you don't want them embedded in the neighborhood. That is harder to achieve than, say, a multi-family building where you may be able to put retail on the ground floor. Councilmember Tim Scott stated, This is really interesting and thank you for the data. You and I had talked one (1) on one (1). You had done work out in Colorado and you had done well with that covering all different income levels. That was interesting. So you are talking maybe about one hundred and fifty-three (153) new units per year over the next five (5) years in mixed income and mixed variety. I'm looking at the potential of new ones and also looking at the ones we have now. I wonder if you have too much of a housing stock already that is not the right housing stock. Ms. Volk stated, Yes and unfortunately today's market is totally divergent from the norm. It is more young people, more old couples and very few families. And we've talked about that and what to do with the existing housing stock. Well, some of it, if it has any kind of architectural character at all,if you add in-fill new construction at higher values,all of the sudden those existing dwelling units accrue higher value as well.It will actually make some of those units more attractive to buy who would not have considered it before. When Baby Boomers were young, we would go into a City and buy a cheap house and fix it up. Millenials don't want to do that. They would rather live in a five hundred(500) square foot cool apartment downtown. Although there is a percentage of young couples who are just starting out and would like to buy something.If there is good quality construction and some architectural detail,you don't have to worry because it will be bought. It is the housing stock that was built as primarily worker housing that is really hard to deal with in the 21St century. Baltimore and Philadelphia and thousands of row-houses, block after block they are empty. Councilmember Scott followed up, I grew up in St. Louis and that is the same there. There is also the potential of people moving away from existing single detached houses because maybe that is too large for them. I was talking with DCI and Councilmember White earlier about repair. But you're saying there could be some of those two (2)-family or four (4)-family flats mixed in with some of the single-family in the right area, right? Ms. Volk replied, We would recommend not doing rentals mid-block. There are plenty of streets that have, at the intersections, vacant corner lots and that is where you could do a rental duplex. Within the block, we should focus on ownership housing. That means, also, rehabbing all the EXCELLENCE I ACCOUNTABILITY I INNOVATION I INCLUSION I EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building 1 227 W.Jefferson Bvld I South Bend,Indiana 466011 p 574.235.9221 If 574.235.9173 1 TTD574.235.5567 I www.southbendin.gov 6