BY CAMERON McWHIRTER and JOHN HOPKINS
The Cincinnati Enquirer
The board of Cincinnati Metropolitan Housing Authority will back a proposal to demolish Lincoln Court apartments -- subject to a signed letter from residents.
That letter of understanding, expected to be signed by Lincoln Court's resident council, will ensure that current residents can return to the planned replacement town houses, if they choose, said Marquicia Jones, resident council president.
The board's stipulated endorsement came Friday during its regular meeting.
The initial fear of the CMHA proposal was that Lincoln Court would be demolished and its residents pushed out to make way for middle-class homeowners. Mr. Jones and John Schrider, a Legal Aid attorney working for the Lincoln Court Resident Council, said the board's latest action relieves some of those fears.
With 10 days left before the application deadline, the CMHA has moved closer to securing the agreement with residents that it has been working on for weeks.
CMHA's original plan calls for the demolition of all 53 buildings at Lincoln Court, replacing them with 444 units of attached townhouses and a single 54-unit building for the frail elderly tenants.
The plan would include 100 market-rate rental apartments and 50 market-rate homes; 100 partially subsidized rentals and 50 partially subsidized homes; and 200 public housing units.
From the beginning, residents agreed with the concept of tearing down the dilapidated Lincoln Court, but they wanted CMHA to have more housing units set aside for low-income residents.
Initially they were asking for 400 public housing units.
The board's action comes at a crucial time for the project's proponents.
Next week, city council is expected to vote on funding the project. CMHA is asking for $6.2 million from the city, as well as $35 million from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Other funding is expected from the state, banks and non-profits, according to Donald Troendle, CMHA's executive director.
Council support will be essential to the project application's success with HUD. But with the application due in Washington, D.C. on June 29, some council members voiced concern that they had only a few weeks to vote on the largest residential development in downtown Cincinnati in the last half-century.
Proponents, including the Downtown Cincinnati Inc., and opponents, including West End neighborhood groups, have been lobbying board members since the project was first reported in The Cincinnati Enquirer on June 10.
