First, I don't think council should feel compelled to grant all developments subsidies such as payment-in-lieu-of-taxes. However, the reasons stated by the City Council as to why they did not grant the subsidy does sound very discriminatory, so I understand the reasoning behind the HUD complaint.
Second, it seems these council members have gotten legal advice telling them basically not to approve any other projects or people will think that they approve subsidies for market-rate housing but not affordable housing. I am not a lawyer, but I don't think it is right or fair for these council members to basically hold up all housing developments in the city over this.
On a side note, does anybody know what developments that Gillespie was referring to?
I agree, it's unfortunate to hear that the development is likely delayed and that the mayor and city council are at odds again (i.e. more so than typical). It seems like the longer some projects drag on, the less likely they are to occur, then quietly die (Capitol Club Tower, perhaps Kewadin Casino, etc).
Below is a link to the article (longer version). Apologies if the previous link contained this, I couldn't see it all. City Pulse
Not sure on what development Gillespie is referring to. Perhaps the Marketplace expansion. There were some small flags on the Marketplace property when I was by there a couple weeks ago, but they are AT&T's.
I honestly don't know what other projects Gillespie is planning.
I care enough about this that I had to send Adam Hussein an email regarding this issue. The city finally has some momentum going here, the population is creeping up and developers are investing in the city. This is a dangerous and reckless game to play.
Jared, this actually doesn't have anything to do about housing. This is the city council linking an unrelated issue with development. The city council for months, now, has been trying to pressure Bernero into being more transparent about why the city attorney was let go. For their part, they are right that Bernero has been less than transparent on that issue, but their way of going about extracting from him what they want has been to hold up EVERYTHING he wants to get done on totally unrelated issues. They believe there is a scandal behind the previous city attorney resigning (the City Pulse had originally reported an embarrassing rumor I won't be repeating before they retracted the story), and it's clear they want to see if they can leverage these development projects to get what they want.
Things are getting a bit crazy, and this has now become a game of chicken. I guess the only silver lining - and it's something I'd talked about in this project's thread - is that this may actually end up saving Scott Gardens. But, that would be at the price of every other upcoming or planned development.
Yeah, there's definitely some backstory behind the severance pay, but it shouldn't derail the rest of the city. In the grand scheme of things, the $160,000 payout is very minor out of the whole budget of the city.
Since I don't do facebook (meaning that his page must be set to private), I can't read the reply, but I imagine it was a good one. They are playing childish (and dangerous) games with the city, right now. It's quite clear they will grind development to a halt if they can humiliate (and possibly force to resign) Bernero. I think they are quickly finding out how well Virg covered his tracks, though. Even if the rumors I've heard are true, the reason for the parting would likely just be embarrassing and not because something illegal happened.
Anyway, speaking of writing the city, I wrote the city today about the HORRIBLE single block of Shiawassee Street between Cedar and Larch that the brewery is located on. It's insane to me that the busiest part of the street is also the worst, and it's literally just that one block. The insulting thing is that a few weeks ago they called themselves trying to patch that mess. lol It's beyond repair; it needs to be totally reconstructed. I'm sure they have enough money to make an emergency reconstruction on a single block of road outside of a busy business in downtown.
Comments
First, I don't think council should feel compelled to grant all developments subsidies such as payment-in-lieu-of-taxes. However, the reasons stated by the City Council as to why they did not grant the subsidy does sound very discriminatory, so I understand the reasoning behind the HUD complaint.
Second, it seems these council members have gotten legal advice telling them basically not to approve any other projects or people will think that they approve subsidies for market-rate housing but not affordable housing. I am not a lawyer, but I don't think it is right or fair for these council members to basically hold up all housing developments in the city over this.
On a side note, does anybody know what developments that Gillespie was referring to?
Below is a link to the article (longer version). Apologies if the previous link contained this, I couldn't see it all.
City Pulse
I honestly don't know what other projects Gillespie is planning.
Things are getting a bit crazy, and this has now become a game of chicken. I guess the only silver lining - and it's something I'd talked about in this project's thread - is that this may actually end up saving Scott Gardens. But, that would be at the price of every other upcoming or planned development.
Anyway, speaking of writing the city, I wrote the city today about the HORRIBLE single block of Shiawassee Street between Cedar and Larch that the brewery is located on. It's insane to me that the busiest part of the street is also the worst, and it's literally just that one block. The insulting thing is that a few weeks ago they called themselves trying to patch that mess. lol It's beyond repair; it needs to be totally reconstructed. I'm sure they have enough money to make an emergency reconstruction on a single block of road outside of a busy business in downtown.