Kalamazoo neighborhood renovation in the works

By Josh Holderbaum
Western Herald

Jeff Chamberlain, Kalamazoo’s Community Planning and Development director, hopes foreclosed homes in six Kalamazoo neighborhoods will soon become a thing of the past.

Chamberlain gave an update on the city’s Neighborhood Stabilization Program spending at the Kalamazoo City Commission meeting on March 1.

The federal program allows cities to acquire foreclosed homes in the Northside, Eastside, Edison, Vine, Oakwood and Fairmont neighborhoods that can then be rehabilitated, renovated or demolished.

“The two main goals for this program are to stabilize the neighborhoods, making these houses look like the best one on the block, and to stimulate the economy with money flowing through the city and local contractors,” Chamberlain said.

However, it can only be used for purchase and holding costs for already foreclosed homes.

“This is a pre-scripted program,” Chamberlain said. “They’re telling us what we can and can’t do. This can help with housing stock, but we have to remember that we can’t use it for mortgages. We’ve had to explain that to a lot of people calling us with questions.”

The funding can be used to help on down payment assistance, purchase and rehabilitation costs, demolition and redevelopment, and holding costs for the county land bank, a newly created entity that manages property just like a normal bank.

Because 25 percent of the funding must be used for low-income residents, homes earning less than 50 percent the average median income, Chamberlain encouraged concentrating on that area first to spend the money creatively before it runs out.

“We’re still having a learning curve as we do this,” Chamberlain said. “The good thing is there are enough cities doing this that we can learn from each other, but we’re still under pressure to move the money as fast as possible.”

In addition to exploring green building opportunities and recycling building parts from demolished buildings, contractors will also be required to hire a certain percent of local workers.
Commissioner Stephanie Moore liked the program’s premise.

“I was excited when I first heard about it and I’m just getting more and more excited,” Moore said.

Vice Mayor Hannah McKinney agreed, but noted how many hoops were attached.

“It’s a little frustrating how many caveats are attached, but that’s the name of the game with federal funding,” McKinney said.

In other business:

•Two new voting precincts were created for the upcoming May 4 election and all elections afterwards: Precinct 11, in the Department of Parks and Recreation conference room at Mayor’s Riverfront Park, 251 Mills St., and Precinct 28 in WMU’s Bernhard Center.

•The commission approved the purchase of twelve Crown Victoria police cars for the Kalamazoo Department of Public Safety from Signature Ford in Owosso for $257,230.

•And the commission accepted a $30,000 Project Safe Neighborhoods sub-recipient grant to create a gun/gang violence investigator position for the Kalamazoo Department of Public Safety.

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Posted by HeraldAdmin on Mar 7 2010. Filed under Local, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

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