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| December
10, 2004 |
By: Terry Sheridan |
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 auderdale Lakes, one of the first cities along
State Road 7 to seek a facelift of the highway, now wants to be the
first partner with Broward County in what would be a model
affordable housing project.
J. Gary Rogers, the city's
redevelopment administrator, wants to make the 368-unit Glen Cove
condos just off State Road 7 on Northwest 39th Terrace a "poster
project" for the county's proclaimed goal of providing more
affordable housing.
And, with new Broward director of affordable housing
Joseph Kocy officially on board as of last week, Rogers said the
timing is right.
The lack of affordable housing in the county "isn't an
emerging problem - it's a tidal wave about to break over our heads,"
he said. "If we can acquire the property, renovate the units and
have deed restrictions that you must be a resident-owner, we can
address work force housing and do something to make the existing
property come back for a real value in the community."
To do that, Rogers
plans to seek part or all of the county's largely untapped $22
million redevelopment capital fund. The fund, established about a
year ago, is intended to help cities with redevelopment projects so
that they avoid the use of tax-increment financing through community
redevelopment agencies.
The agencies, or CRAs, are public entities that raise
money for redevelopment through bonds and property taxes. The taxes
collected in a CRA are frozen in the year the district is created.
After that, the agency may keep up to 95 percent of new taxes
generated by development and property value increases. The funds
must be reinvested in the district through a process known as
tax-increment financing, or TIF.
County Administrator Roger
Desjarlais has opposed that financing for years, saying that it
drains tens of millions of dollars from county coffers.
Though the county has
contributed funding to newer CRAs that meet county guidelines, the
redevelopment capital fund is largely untouched for non-CRA
projects, said Catherine Randazzo, a planner-economist in the
county's Department of Urban Planning and Redevelopment in Fort
Lauderdale.
The fund, begun in 2003, is budgeted to spend about $92
million by 2009.
"I've been to many, many cities over the past few
weeks, and they all say they have a project [for funding]," she said
last week. "How many I get in terms of actual applications is how
I'll measure it."
Plantation and Fort Lauderdale also have indicated an
interest in non-CRA project funding, she said.
But Rogers is adamant that he
wants Lauderdale Lakes to take the lead, and he intends for the city
to apply this month for project assistance.
"I proposed [in a meeting with
county officials] that we not get into a TIF-for-turf argument,
where I need to give up TIF to get [their] money," he said. "Let's
go outside the CRA and do a model project."
Glen Cove is immediately south
of the Lauderdale Lakes CRA, though it was inside the boundary
before the agency was reduced in size.
Built in the early 1980s, Glen
Cove apparently once was considered a prime location. Rogers said
that several Miami Dolphins football players lived there in the
development's early years.
Since then, absentee investors have bought and rented
many of the condos.
Now, about 235 units are either vacant or occupied by
tenants, Rogers said.
About four years ago, the city began fining unit
owners, in particular investor Richard Weit, for failing to acquire
permits to rent the condos.
As of June, the city had $4.47
million in code enforcement liens against the condos, Rogers said.
The current
owner, Cotillion Investments of Aventura, acquired the bulk of the
units from Weit and is eager to sell off its properties, Rogers
said.
Cotillion director Jason Madow has a different
perspective. "Of course, I like Gary's plan, but I can't dance with
the county unless the city wants to cooperate with me," he said.
Madow said he
assumed the former owner's lien because he believed the city "would
be agreeable to a new owner and I felt the basis for the lien wasn't
a big deal."
He said he offered to settle the lien for $50,000, and
the city refused.
"This is a nonforeclosable lien, it's a paper filing,"
Madow said. "It's not like I left a building dilapidated or did
construction without a permit."
City Commissioner Hazelle Rogers
said the city is willing to work with Madow, providing that the
community's common elements are improved.
"The community's pool is not
usable but they charge maintenance fees for it," she said. "And
there is no access to the clubhouse. We're just saying that we want
to take a look at what he [Madow] wants to do there."
Glen Cove isn't the
only project Lauderdale Lakes is pushing. Mayor Samuel Brown said
Thursday that the city is considering a similar plan for the nearby
Sunset Hills condominium, which has more than 200 units on Northwest
21st Street.
Though Glen Cove poses a bigger problem because it has
more units, Sunset Hills could be more difficult to turn around
because there are more more individual owners involved, he said.
"You've got a
lot more small investors there, who own perhaps several units
instead of hundreds," Brown said.
Regardless, Rogers said she's
been pushing for affordable housing for the past two years.
"I've been trying to
get affordable housing in Central Broward and, in my city, this
would be a good project."
Even if the city isn't the actual applicant, the
project could fare well, Gary Rogers added.
Hazelle and Gary Rogers are not
related.
Another agency, such as the Broward Housing Authority,
could apply and shepherd tenants who have already been through that
agency's mortgage and credit counseling. They could be awarded
subsidies to cover their down payments and closing costs.
Tenants can become
homeowners through programs like community block grant funds; the
state Housing Initiative Partnership, which provides funding to
nonprofit organizations and local agencies to help fund low-income
housing and mortgages; and mortgage incentives provided through the
Federal Home Loan Bank to its member banks, Gary Rogers said.
If the county
or another agency acquired each Glen Cove unit for $80,000 including
renovations, for example, and buyers had $15,000 in subsidies
through a funding program, private mortgage lenders or banks could
fund the remaining $65,000 needed to buy a unit - repaying the
county or agency that purchased the units - and, in turn, build a
revolving loan pool.
"The measure of success is getting the majority of
these people to become owners," Gary Rogers said. "That's the No. 1
threshold we have to cross."
Terry Sheridan can be reached at
tsheridan@floridabiz.com or at (954) 468-2614.
J. Gary Rogers photo by
Melanie Bell |
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