The Observation Deck

LAKEWOOD AWARDED OVER ONE MILLION DOLLARS TOWARDS HOUSING

Today, the Ohio Department of Development announced that the City of Lakewood will receive $1,072,216 as part of the Federal Neighborhood Stabilization Program. Lakewood received this award after months of advocacy by city officials to federal state and local officials. The amount received exceeds the amount that Lakewood officials anticipated.

The funds will be used towards implementing Mayor FitzGerald’s Housing Initiative, which includes efforts to acquire and redevelop foreclosed properties that might otherwise become sources of abandonment and blight within their communities. The City plans to rehabilitate, resell, or redevelop these homes in order to stabilize neighborhoods and stem the decline of house values of neighboring homes. Other programs will assist in revitalizing property and assisting first time home buyers to buy property in Lakewood.

Throughout 2008, the FitzGerald Administration has made housing issues a priority which can be directly attributed to the increased funding that Lakewood will receive. Legislation was passed earlier this year to allow the City to purchase foreclosed homes. The City utilized this legislation to purchase the neglected home at 17112 Riverside Drive and sell it with deed restrictions to ensure that the nuisance was abated. Mayor FitzGerald also launched the 2008 Lakewood Housing Initiative. This initiative is a two-pronged approach: it encourages investment by homeowners, while streamlining and toughening enforcement measures. These measures placed Lakewood in the position to advocate that it deserved more funding than was originally expected.

“My Administration has been focusing on housing issues throughout 2008,â€￾ stated Mayor Ed FitzGerald. “This funding is will help to preserve our housing stock for the next generation of Lakewood residents.â€￾

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And this will be accopmlished with how many housing inspectors?

Would it be better to spend $50,000 on twenty houses or spend it all in a small section of the City to buy substandard apartments? In a City with 27,000 housing units does spending $25,000 on fourty houses have a greater impact than spending $1 million on one city block?

Bill Call wrote:Would it be better to spend $50,000 on twenty houses or spend it all in a small section of the City to buy substandard apartments? In a City with 27,000 housing units does spending $25,000 on fourty houses have a greater impact than spending $1 million on one city block?

Bill

Of course that depends on the blocks, and the homes.

One idea I always liked was buying lots and marrying them, and redeveloping them into larger homes/lots. But is that practical in this day and age, when you have cities doing the same with 30 tax abatements? I do not know.

Should it all go into, turning doubles into singles? We could spend $1 million we could do 16.6 homes, and get rid of 16 rental units! Hey we were told it is the future.

Or in the era of tough money loans and rising value in rental stock, build a new section to the gold coast and bring in 6,000 new residents.

But Clifton Beach and make it a community private beach, where relators(more than one) claim it would add 10% - 20% to the value of all homes and property in Lakewood.

Or do we land bank homes near business districts?

Or do we do the $30,000 study for the peninsula, which could add $250 million in property to the city?

Whatever, I hope the city does not outsource the the program to a group like "Blackwater" that has no record of success, but becomes a "land management" company to suck off any financial benefit that could come from it instead of the city.

The release mentions the Riverside Dr. home, I hoped they learned from that who can deliver and who cannot.

FWIW


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Jim O'Bryan wrote:Of course that depends on the blocks, and the homes.

The fur will fly when the decision is made. Which is why the $1 million will evaporate into 100 little projects that no one will notice.

Jim O'Bryan wrote:
The release mentions the Riverside Dr. home, I hoped they learned from that who can deliver and who cannot.

You always stop writing just when it starts to get interesting.

Bill Call wrote:You always stop writing just when it starts to get interesting.

Bill


You know exactly what I am speaking of, it has been written by others.

I was just thinking they should hire you to oversee this money. You have a pretty good record turning homes, unlike some who could not even do it with bankers involved and on their board.

You want no medical coverage, benefits, or pension.

And if I remember correctly once mentioned working for a dollar.

(Eisel told me to put them here.)

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How about replacing some of these homes with small home, 2 to 3 to a lot, attract young professionals and first time homebuyers, make them solar powered and use other green technology, rather than continuing to pour money into homes that no one can afford to live and and still be able to do other things.

Maybe straw bale homes, earthbag homes, things that help the environment and put Lakewood on the cutting edge.

Heating bills? Cooling bills?

Attract new taxpayers, young professionals and people concerned about renewable energy resources. More disposable income for local economy and encourage job training and small business start-ups for renewal energy.

Stephen Eisel wrote:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPlvv5zTbkU&feature=related

Stephen

Interesting.

One new project we are working on is in a community where they are outfitting every public building with massive solar arrays. These units are from Germany and designed to work efficiently in the cloudy to clear area like the Great Lakes. All powered not used by the building is diverted back into the power grid to reduce all residents costs on the grid.

The race is on.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hM_-uMjw8Es Is this your Buick ?

I vote we use the money to tear down the foreclosed house and either create green space for public use or sell the lot to the neighbors.

It all comes in cycles. The housing market will rebound in a couple of years and we will be right back where we started. We will be much better off when the next bubble crashes if we reduce our housing stock now. Just a thought.

Jim DeVito wrote:I vote we use the money to tear down the foreclosed house and either create green space for public use or sell the lot to the neighbors. .

If the "people" get to vote the money gets spent on 10,000 seperate $100 projects. No voting allowed.

Jim DeVito wrote: It all comes in cycles. The housing market will rebound in a couple of years and we will be right back where we started. We will be much better off when the next bubble crashes if we reduce our housing stock now. Just a thought.

I'm not so sure.

Much of the economic growth of the last 15 years was based on consumers buying more stuff paid for with credit lines and refinanced mortgages.

It was government policy to encourage home ownership with lax lending standards and cheap money. The resultant inflation in home values encouraged new construction and speculation which led to an unnatural churning in the housing market.

Stagnant housing values might be with us for quite a long time. Many of the proposed solutions to the current "crisis" require the federal government to lower interest rates and relax lending standards to increase housing prices.

We might see a slight upturn for a short while but it won't last long. The previous housing inflation was made possible by borrowed money. The new housing inflation will be made possible by newly printed money. That inflation won't last very long. You can only print so much money before you ruin the economy. Then you have housing deflation.

So...what about Lakewood?

The City has a younger, better educated population than most cities in this area. How to keep them?

The population is poorer than it once was but not much poorer. And most of that difference is the result of a younger population. The City still has a substantial middle and upper middle class (aka, the people who pay the bills). How to keep them?

The City's population is increasing. Moderate housing prices, convenience and decent schools, libraries and infrastructure make this an attractive place to live. How to enhance the attraction?

At some point the leadership in this town is going to have to make tough development decisions. By that I mean buy and tear down obsolete housing in high visability areas and give the land away to developers on the condition that they build what we (I) want built. What is that? More upscale apartments to keep older residents who want one floor living. More upscale lofts and apartments to attract young wage earners.

The opposition will come from "community groups" who decry the loss of affordable housing. The response from the leadership should be "Lakewood has 28,000 housing units. Elliminating 1,000 substandard apartments and replacing them with modern living space will help preserve what we have. Do you really think Lakewood's problems are caused by too little affordable housing?"

Bill Call wrote: The opposition will come from "community groups" who decry the loss of affordable housing. The response from the leadership should be "Lakewood has 28,000 housing units. Elliminating 1,000 substandard apartments and replacing them with modern living space will help preserve what we have. Do you really think Lakewood's problems are caused by too little affordable housing?"

Bill

You are right with the scenario, but not sure we are going to see an upturn even briefly over the next ten or more years. I also do not see the region's economy growing quickly, if at all. I would say it will even be tougher with "regional groups" working to get businesses to move into a region that is outlined from Youngstown to Westlake. Any impact will like be spread so thin, that any real impact will never be realized.

Now we throw in the perfect storm against Lakewood. Slow home sales, so those moving are less. Today's PD points to such a study that shows moving has all but dried up. Then the real prices finally hitting the west coast. Homes that were $1 mill on the West Coast down to $350,000 and still in free fall, $500,000 homes at $$150,000 - $200,000. The same can be said for Southwest, south, and east coast.

So with looming depression, layoffs, negative job growth, etc. The path should be very very clear. Clean up rentals, and build a city that is different from any other city in the region. If we do it correctly we should be able to "draft in" good energetic people, that are looking for something nice and unique in the area.

The only way for Lakewood to really succeed over the next 10-25 years is by attracting another 10,000 or more new residents. The easiest most proving method of doing this is the Gold Coast, and the lake's shoreline. It is a proven way to attract, and hold on to residents.

It was refreshing to see many of the ideas that came out of the visionary alignment for Lakewood incorporated into the latest housing plans. Loans based on education, where a person with college education, would get $5,000 towards the price of buying, and a person with an MBA might get $7,500, and doctorate maybe $15,000. This would be an interest fee loan, that would not have to be paid back as long as they live in the city. But would be paid back should they leave. The money could generate hundreds of these loans. The VAL saw this as a way to attract young, educated people, that could grow from condo, to house, to big house.

Of course another big part of the program could be increasing the value of all homes in Lakewood with Beach access. This could be in the form of a public park, which would be legal use of eminent domain. I think I remember some people saying they would step up, if asked to, if it benefited the city.

Speaking of increasing all values, I believe all but about 100 homes, could be eligible for historic designation. While this would not increase values, it would make more FREE money available to fix up the housing stock we currently have. For the little bit of money and effort this would be huge.

Until the markets get straight 10-20 years, it would be foolish to put any stock in retail, and or big money homes, or even office space that made sense 10 years ago. I have to think the secret is attracting new residents.

It will take new out of the box thinking, something this city has been sorely missing for the last 20 years. To a certain extent, these leaders are the ones that drive the bus that get us where we are now. In the past 5 years since starting this, we have seen many things asked for, that would have been disasters, malls, big box stores, chains, more crappy malls. None would have paid off. We have also seen some great out of the box thinking, that this city's civic leaders passed over, to chase programs that "seemed" to work elsewhere, but have never gotten traction here. Is Lakewood ready for urban farming? or are we chasing big box stores? Are we ready for a redesigned lakefront worth millions, or a redesigned Birdtown worth hundreds of thousands, maybe?

Another place $1 million could make a difference is Hillard between Madison and Warren Rd. It seems to me that stretch has some stately homes with some not so stately doubles between them. It would be interesting to see what it would look like if it was a stately home on each corner with huge fenced in yards. It would go a long way towards lifting the city up.

OR

Fix up the homes on Warren and other major entry ways, so that city appears nicer to those coming in. For years I have been preaching, "are we frosting a cake that has yet to be baked?"

OR

Call in Tom Barrett, Rosewood has been a success. He came in understood the city and the city's needs. Broke ground and and sold out, while other developers have failed to do anything but bring down property values and foster blight in neighborhoods they have plans er dreams for.


FWIW


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Welcome to hell.

It seems to me that most of the "out of the box" thinking is classist.

That should get er done.

Let's rebuild the housing stock in a manner that all the "undesirables" will be run out of town.

That loan based on college degree is the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen.

Hope you all have a great time living in your nivarna.

Jim O'Bryan wrote: Fix up the homes on Warren and other major entry ways, so that city appears nicer to those coming in. For years I have been preaching, "are we frosting a cake that has yet to be baked?"
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Call in Tom Barrett, Rosewood has been a success. He came in understood the city and the city's needs. Broke ground and sold out, while other developers have failed to do anything but bring down property values and foster blight in neighborhoods they have plans er dreams for.

Warren, Webb, Cove and Bunts are what I call gateway streets. Many people drive through town via these streets and judge the whole City by what they see. People drive up Webb to Detroit and are confronted with some of the ugliest architecture in the State of Ohio (you know, the buildings dedicated to the arts). Why not $500,000 in grants for housing restoration on Webb? The home owner gets $10,000 but must spend $15,000 on outside restoration.

The Star Chamber For The Arts is going to spend $250 million at University Circle. Why not $15 million for Beck Center?
Drive up Cove to Detroit and you are confronted with….you get the picture.
The new economy will be good for Lakewood but we have to set the stage.
Rosewood was done just right. The project demonstrated that there is a demand for that type of space. The small time operator gets it right the billion dollar corporation gets it wrong. Go figure.