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HomeMy WebLinkAboutIMPALA VILLAGE PUD PRELIMINARY - 6 93 - MEDIA - CORRESPONDENCE�rian�le 11iteview Neighbors decry 'garbage' housing units fir Dan MacArthur Triangle Re%lees Managing Editor Candidates in this week's City Council election ranked affordable housing right up there with icon and apple pic. But plans to build a low-income housing project in northwest Fort Collins may well challenge the new counciPs contmiIntent to its campaign promises. Two separate groups of neighbors this meek formally challcuged the planning and zoning commission's preliminary approval or the Impala Village planned unit development. those appeals will be heard on May 4 when the the council reviews plans by the Fort Collins (lousing Authority to develop 56 housing units and an office and maintenance facility. They would be located on 8.4 acres new West Mulberry Street and and Impala Circle next to Poudre High Schad. l he appeals deal largely with technical natters but the underlying issues surfaced during an angry neighborhood mecting last week that senior city planner Ted Shepard admits was "one of the more emotional neighborhood meetings I've evu facilitates" The more than 40 neighbors in attendance strongly and loudly objected to the housing authority's plans to move 28 salvaged modular duplexes onto the site and renovate them. In addition to concerns about excessive density, dramatically increased traffic, and school overcrowding, neighbors seriously questioned the housing authority's ability to adequately renovate the discarded former University of Colorado student housing units. I The authority proposes to buy the units from a Boulder contractor for nearly $300,000, or about $11,500 each. It already HOUSING Authority hopes to move these units near Poudre High. Triangle Review photo by Sid Stevens has purchased six, which are stored in a lot project, put it even more concisely at the off North College Avenue. neighborhood meeting. "This is garbage," he The modular units are in bad structural said. "This is an eyesore. It's never going to shape and hopelessly incompatible with be a quality project." existing architecture in the neighborhood, Fort Collins Housing Authority according to the appeal filed by neighbors Executive Director Shelly Stephens uses the Sharon Winfree, Patrick Mahoney and same term in describing the units while Cynthia Combs. adding her own qualifier. "The fear of the neighborhood is that "I call it raw material," she says. "It is the structures will easily be identified as a merely raw material." 'low-income housing project; resembling a She says all the housing authority can 'thrown together mobile home park," they do is keep "chipping away (at the staled in their appeal. opposition) and showing our product." John Schnittker, a contractor and Based on its excellent reputation for neighbor to the proposed Impala Village continued an pop Housing continued Irom page I rehabilitating basket -case buildings, Stephens says she is absolutely convinced the housing authority can create a well-buill and attractive development. "We maintain and manage to a very high quality standard," insists Stephens. "We have regulations that are higher than the private sector." But Stephens says she will never be able to put to rest all the ncighbors' fears and concerns about low-income housing. "1 did not create the problem of low-income purple and I'm not going to solve it." she says. "The NIMBY (not in my backyard) is prejudice. It's no different than racism." "We're not against low-income housing," counters neighbor Bob Colbert, who filed another appeal along with his wife Rosemary and neighbor Rita Wright. "This is just too much," Colbert, continues, pointing out that I low-income housing units already are located next to the proposed Impala Village. Although admittedly late in getting involved. Colbert has become an activist in mobilizing opposition to Impala Village, which he says would be plainly visible out the front window of his Briarwou(1 Court home. Culbert says he became particularly concerned after traveling to Boulder to inspect the rest of the duplexes the housing authority plans to purchase. Colbert's graphic slider of the decaying units added fuel to the fiery neighborhood meeting. "1 look a look at them and was shocked," he says. Many of the units, according to Colbert, carried a powerful stench and suffered from rot and major structural damage. Others lacked sinks, toilets and bathrubs. "Don't t aohe in hue and put junk in our backyard," he says. "They can at (cast come up to our standards." But even beyond the actual condition of the units, Colbert says he and others am most upset with what they characterize as the housing authority's apparent arrogant unwillingness to considu their concerns. "They basically tell us as; neighbor; we don't have any say and that's what really fired us up," he says. "Dealing with the housing authority you have no say. They don't budge." Specifically, Colbert says, he's angry later the housing authority purchased the property —at a cost of $102,000— without informing neighbors of its plans. lie suggests it would have been more appropriate to instead execute a purchase option to allow time for working with neighbors. And, he says, the housing authority has not been particularly forthcoming with its plans or in responding to inquiries. "I didn't get W answer to a single one. That's how they do it. They push you right out the door." Stephens, however, insists that the housing authority is flexible and willing to work with neighbors. "Nothing is done," she says. "It's not over'lil its over." But perhaps most importantly, Colbert and others want to know why nearly all the the public and low-inconnc housing is concentrated on the north side of the city. Already, he contends, 80 percent of it located north of Prospect Road and 65 percent is in the area north of Prospect and west of College Avenue. "It's going to ruin the north side of town," he says. 1 think they should disperse it in no more than 10 units. Then it would blend in." "I would love to buy a piece of property on the liorsciooth Reservoir," agrees Stephens. "But we have to deal with reality. "The reality is property costs less on the north." If die housing authority was forced to pay more for the land or the materials, she says it would not be able to create 56 two- and toot -bedroom units renting for $250 or $300, respectively, a month. The units, she says, would be rented to the so-called "working poor" who cam from $6 to $9 an hour, or $10,000 to $12,(XX) a year —primarily single parents. She stresses that these are not public housing but "assisted housing" units whose full construction and maintenance costs must be covered through rents. "We're here to respond to the housing crisis. I have a wailing list 2,000 people long;" says Stephens. "Do you WWI to just give lip service to the need forpublic housing? Councilman Gerry Horak, who represents the ama, says the controversy well demonstrates the conflict between talking about affordable housing and actually doing something about it. "We have to put sonic real money and effort into it," says Horak. "We have to put more resources into building high -quality affordable housing." Affordable housing, he explains, will never be adegnatcly distributed across the city unless the city is willing to subsidize it or make it a condition in its Land Development Guidance System. He suggests Fort Collins may need to consider regulations imposed in other cities requiring developers to either provide a certain number of affordable housing units in every subdivision. or to contribute toward an affordable housing fiord. The council already has created such a fund and allocate! $250,000 to it, Horak notes. And, he further suggests, changes are needed to involve neighborhoods earlier in the planning process and provide for negotiations between them and developers instead of the "one-way dialogs" offered by neighborhood meetings. Director takes unlikely path to the top Rochelle "Shelly" Stephens under- stands those she serves because she's been there. Actually the woman who now heads the Fort Collins (lousing Authority has seen both sides. She went front a Cadillac and country club membership to •`tr ` t, public assistance and `4441111LLLNNN food stamps following tier divorce. IE, "What 1 have today - �jL is n gift and I don't `'�� think 1 earned it," Stephens says tearfully with [lie still -strong accent of her native Stephens Brooklyn. "I know how it is to be discouraged." Stephens, 51, was selected from the 75 applicants to fill the position vacated last year with the resignation of longtime former director David Herrera. She assumed the S42,000 position on March 1. She oversees an agency with a $1.2 million annual budget that manages nearly 700 affordable housing units in Fort Collins and Wellington. It was an unlikely career path for the (laughter of Polish immigrants who came to the United States to give their children opponunitics they never dreamed of. Forsaking her parents' desires that she continued on page 2 Director continued Irompege 1 gel a good education. Stephens quit Brooklyn College after six months to follow her executive husband to Ventura County, Calif. When her two children were small, she returned to college through a special women's re-entry program at Moorpark College. There site earned an associate degree and teamed a great deal about herself. The experience made her a "middle-class malcontent" while giving her new confidence in her abilities. That understanding would prove important when she suddenly found herself homeless, unemployable and on welfare following a divorce she describes as "surgery without anesthesia." "The only thing I knew bow to do was sew and cook," recalls Stephens, so she pursued a home economics degree from California Stale University -Northridge in hopes of becoming a dietitian. But she soon realized the degree didn't make her much more employable so Stephens immediately started working toward her a masters of public administration. She completed her degree in 1986 at age 45 and soon after was appointed deputy director of the Ventura County Area Housing Authority —a regional agency with a $13 million annual budget. It was quite a step considering she had started working for the housing authority years earlier as a CETA employee "because it was a job." Stephens says she's excited about her position in Fort Collins because, "Mere there's an opportunity to work intimately with die needs of the community." If she's learned anything in her life, Stephens says it's the advice she offers all, especially women —it's never too late to change your life.