HomeMy WebLinkAboutSubmittal-Development ArticleDevelopment
Working poor to get affordable housing on YMCA property
October 26, 2007
oung men left the English countryside looking for better -paying jobs in
industrialized London 163 years ago. Once in the city, many couldn't afford a
roof over their heads. The Young Men's Christian Association was bom to give
them shelter.
Almost two centuries later, the story is repeating itself in Miami -Dade County.
The YMCA of Greater Miami is building apartments for the working poor on two of its
campuses.
The YMCA is contributing the land, and the Carlisle Development Group, one of the
nation's largest developers of housing for low-income families, will build and manage the
apartments.
"In a way, we are going back to our roots," YMCA of Greater Miami president and CEO
Alfred Sanchez said. "We are facing one of the largest affordable housing crises, and we
want to help."
YMCA Village Carver in Miami's Little Haiti will have 300 units, and YMCA Village
Allapattah will have 200 apartments and a new YMCA center. coo
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Federal figures show the average market rent for a Miami -Dade studio apartment is
$741.
Bargain rents at the two planned apartment complexes will range from $350 to $750 a
month for families and seniors making 30 percent to 60 percent of the area median
income.
For a family of four, the area median income is $45,200 a year, opening the apartments
to families earning $17,800 to $27,120 a year.
The new homes will target people like Elvira Thomas, a single parent with three teenage
children. She lives in Allapattah and works part-time in a Hialeah clothing store earning
$10 an hour.
The 44-year-old saleswoman is renting a three -bedroom apartment at Allapattah
Gardens, a Carlisle rental community, for $780 a month. A cousin who rents elsewhere is
paying $1,500 a month, Thomas said.
She ran across the Carlisle building almost by accident in 2004 when she needed to find
a new home. She was living in a nearby duplex with a relative when their relationship
soured.
One day she was walking with her sons and saw the skeleton of a building going up. She
talked to the construction workers, and they gave her a brochure. She teamed she qualified for the rent -controlled
project and became one of Allapattah Gardens' first tenants.
"I feel safe here," she said. "I sleep at ease. I am comfortable. I respect this place. When my kids lean on a wall, I tell them
'Get off that wall. If the wall doesn't lean on you, you don't get on it. Don't touch it.'"
Matt Greer, Carlisle's chief operating officer, said the Coconut Grove -based company plans to start construction by the end
of the year and complete the $129 million YMCA projects in 18 months. / 2 r ,
While offering housing, the effort will also bolster other YMCA offerings. 1`-
The new $6 million YMCA center in Allapattah will more than double the day care space to serve 140 children, Sanchez; Q
said.
"We will be able to expand our programs to serve young kids, teenagers and the elderly," he said.
Carlisle signed a 67-year lease with the YMCA for $500,000 a year, which will help fund YMCA progra is
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Reprints &_Permissions Print
By: Paola luspa-Abbott
Matt Greer
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Costly land
Carlisle and the YMCA opted to work together in part because of escalating land costs.
http://www.ciailpbusinessreview.com/news.html?news id=45487&stdpTemplate=1
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There aren't enough subsidies available to help build homes for the working poor, said attorney John Little of Legal
Services of Greater Miami. He represents nonprofit developers focused on housing for the working poor.
'The land is key," he said. "Without the land there isn't any affordable housing.'
About 60 percent of Carlisle's construction costs will be paid through federal tax credits, and 10 percent comes from
county and city grants, Greer said. The rest will come from conventional loans to be repaid from the rent revenue.
"In a traditional deal, you have 80 percent debt and 20 percent equity, he said. "In our case, we sell the low-income
housing tax credit on Wall Street and use the money to have a 60 percent equity."
Obtaining the tax credits is highly competitive, and only a few are successful every year.
The program provides a dollar -for -dollar credit to reduce the tax owed by the owner of low-income apartments. But the tax
break also can be used by developers to bring investors into a project in exchange for a share of the credits.
Carlisle will receive about $2.43 million in tax credits annually for each of the YMCA projects for the next 10 years, said
Jennifer Chester, housing credits administrator for the Florida Housing Finance Corp. in Tallahassee, which administers
the federal program in Florida. Chester said she will be leaving the agency soon to join Carlisle.
"Obviously the project won't need $24 million in tax credits, so they sell it to someone who can use $24 million in tax
credits," she said.
Technically, the tax credits are not sold, but transferred for a fee to investors who form companies with the developer.
'They create partnerships where the credits switch around," she said. "But it all stays under one roof."
Often developers transfer 99 percent of the tax credits and keep 1 percent for the project.
The credits come with strings attached. Carlisle's developer fee is capped at 16 percent of construction costs, Chester 163/4
said. Another string: the apartments must remain affordable to the working poor for at least 30 years.
Nothing prevents the developer from selling the buildings at market value after the time limitations are up.
Little said developers like Carlisle build apartments with almost no money of their own and decades later are free to sell
them for millions of dollars in profits.
Boosting the tax rolls
The deal is also good news for the county because the YMCA land was tax-exempt but will go back on the property tax
rolls, said Greer, whose company will pay the tax bill.
The deal benefits an economy deeply rooted in the service industry.
The conventional measure of home affordability is that residents should spend no more than 30 percent of family income
on housing.
In 2005, about 85 percent of Miami -Dade families who eamed Tess than $35,000 a year spent more than 30 percent of
their money on housing, according to a University of Florida study. Nearly 40 percent of county households paid more than
30 percent of their income in housing compared with 1 percent of households statewide.
People counting on the county for help were stunningly disappointed. The Miami Herald's "House of Lies" series last year
reported the county handed over millions of dollars to developers who built little or no housing. The county's housing
agency is subject to a federal takeover to get its finances back on track.
Little said the housing needs of the working poor are growing but subsidies are not.
"People need a lot of hope," Thomas said. "But they also need to look around and realize what is going on. We are not
invisible."
Matt Greer photo by A.M. Holt
Paola luspa-Abbott can be reached at piuspa@alm.com or at (305) 347-6657.
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Submitted Into the public
record in connection Lion with
item Tz,2 on I I -q- 01
Priscilla A. Thompson
City Clerk
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