February 1st, the big deadline for the WHEDA application to help make the housing affordable on Allied Drive. And what do we know at this point? Not much more than we knew before. Last week I went to a meeting to find out what “the numbers” were. Unfortunately, I’m not sure that I got what I thought we would.
There is so much we still don’t know. Here’s a partial list.
1. How many of the units will be owner-occupied and how many will be rental?
2. How many rental units will be in which bedroom sizes?
3. How affordable will the rental units be?
4. How affordable will the owner-occupied units be?
5. Will there be community space – for the whole community?
6. Where will the people who live there now live while they are waiting to get into the new units?
7. How much will the city pay in relocation costs for the people who have to move twice to get into these units? (Was this included in the costs of the project?)
8. What is the price per unit in the first phase?
9. What is the plan for the second phase of the project? (This is important because if the CDA gets the WHEDA tax credits, ALL of the land is transfered, not just the land for the first phase.)
10. How many section 8 vouchers will be removed from the community to be “stuck” to this project?
Seems like many of these questions are the same questions that were being asked a year and a half ago, and they are still not answered, and we have less than a month (January 22nd) before the council and all the committees have to vote.
