Thursday, April 01, 1999
Approach to public housing being rebuilt
BY MARK CURNUTTE
The Cincinnati Enquirer
As bulldozers begin deploying to level buildings in Cincinnati's Lincoln Court public housing complex, plans have been made to demolish most of Laurel Homes next door.
The two low-income complexes, in the West End, are the largest operated by the Cincinnati Metropolitan Housing Authority (CMHA).
The CMHA will seek a $35 million federal Hope VI grant to demolish 21 buildings containing 970 public housing apartments in Laurel Homes. CMHA won a $31.1 million Hope VI grant last year to tear down and rebuild Lincoln Court. Demolition will begin Monday.
“Our goal is to make public housing like it was in the 1950s — mixed income, with teachers and other professionals living here,” said CMHA Executive Director Donald Troendle.
The Laurel Homes units, opened in June 1938, would be replaced with 630 mixed-income units on the site, including 130 units now being renovated in three buildings, and 85 units to be built or renovated off-site throughout the West End, he said.
Laurel Homes residents are guaranteed the right to stay, Mr. Troendle said. About 240 of 1,100 Laurel Homes' units are vacant.
If the grant is approved, the West End of the early 21st century would be a dramatically different place.
Laurel Homes, on 22 acres north of Ezzard Charles Drive, and Lincoln Court to the south have been home to thousands of residents for 60 years. But the three- and four-story red-brick buildings fall below current standards of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).
The city of Cincinnati contributed $6.2 million to the Lincoln Court project.
Councilman Charles Winburn is chairman of the Neighborhood, Small Business and Environment Committee. He said the CMHA has asked the city for $9 million from its HUD Community Development Block Grant for Laurel Homes.
“I'm not opposed to the Laurel Homes project, but I think our $9 million might be better spent to repair dilapidated housing in Over-the- Rhine, which has the most blight and vacancy in the city,” Mr. Winburn said. “Maybe CMHA should beef up its capital campaign in the private sector.”
The grant application is due to HUD by May 27. The project would cost $75 million, and the CMHA is counting on tax credits, bank loans and contributions from the city, county and other sources to make up the difference.
This week, the West End Community Council joined the Laurel Homes Resident Council in agreement with the plan to rebuild Laurel Homes.
Shirley Colbert, president of the resident council, signed an agreement with the CMHA on Tuesday, and Mr. Troendle and CMHA Board Chairperson Maria Pesante signed the agreement Wednesday.
On Monday, community council President Gloria Hemmingway wrote to Ms. Colbert expressing the council's support for the grant application, even though the council does not support the Lincoln Court application.
“It was a point of organization,” Ms. Hemmingway said Wednesday. “We're not involved in the Lincoln Court plan the way we thought we should be. Laurel Homes has not made a move without us.”
She does not live in either of the public housing complexes, but Ms. Hemmingway said all of the residents she knows support the Hope VI plans. She has concerns, though.
“I worry that half of them will not come back,” she said.
Because demolition and construction will be done in phases, residents would be moved ahead of demolition and back into new units once they are completed. Rents will remain at 30 percent of a resident's gross income.
The new Laurel Homes would have 150 ownership units (half of which will be available only to qualified low-income applicants), 251 market-rate rental units and 314 low-rent public housing units, down from the 1,100 that had been available there.
Mr. Troendle said that the CMHA would then become eligible for 786 additional Section 8 low-income housing certificates that residents could use anywhere in the county.
“Residents will have more housing options,” he said. “We will be decreasing the density.”
The CMHA is rehabbing three Laurel Homes buildings at the corner of Liberty and Linn streets. The number of housing units there is being reduced from 240 to 130. One building near the corner was demolished, and the other units will increase in size between 7 percent and 40 percent.
A park will replace the demolished building. Units have also been upgraded to include laundry hookups in each apartment. But there will be no carpet, private yards or off-street parking, Mr. Troendle said. The units will be reoccupied beginning in June.
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