Cincinnati Mayor Charlie Luken says he will not support a $5 million housing project in Over-the-Rhine.

        That's because the low-income housing group backing the project hasn't done enough to bring market-rate developments to the area, he said.

        “I haven't seen them give one inch,” Mr. Luken told the Enquirer on Tuesday. “I haven't seen them budge.”

        His decision is likely to be the last nail in the coffin for a proposal by ReSTOC to convert eight vacant buildings around Vine Street into low-income housing.

        Since its first proposal was rejected by the City Council in June, ReSTOC members have kept asking for $700,000 to complete a financing package that includes a $4 million loan from the state.

        But if the project isn't started by next month, the state loan will be revoked and will go to another project.

        “We have already got one extension,” ReSTOC coordinator Jennifer Summers said Tuesday after the council's finance committee delayed a decision on the group's most recent proposal. “This council needs to act now. They need to deal with it.”

        The council in June deadlocked in a 4-4 vote on the project, which meant the project failed. And council members who voted against the project say they've seen nothing since then that would change their votes.

        Councilman Charlie Winburn, who was absent from the June meeting said Tuesday he will not support the project for the same reasons that Mr. Luken won't.

        “It hinges on Luken or Winburn,” Ms. Summers said Tuesday, adding that the latest proposal is a good one. “This will facilitate a mix of housing.”

        The new proposal would create 45 units for residents earning between $8,000 and $32,000 annually. Nine of the units would go for very low income, 25 to people who earn 50 percent of the median family income and 11 to people who earn 40 percent to 60 percent of the median.

        In the original proposal, nine units went to the lowest income range and 36 went to those earning 50 percent of the median.

        Ms. Summers says not only does the new proposal open the door to those earning higher incomes — such as city employees, bus drivers and bank tellers — but it also comes with a commitment from city administrators to spend $800,000 on market-rate housing on Vine Street next year.

        Mr. Luken said the city could do that with or without ReSTOC.

        “My problems with Re- STOC have to do with them making some of the buildings they own available for development,” he said. “Until that happens, I can't support them.”

        Through various names, he said ReSTOC owns anywhere from 30 to 70 properties throughout downtown that have never been developed.

        Mr. Winburn said he attempted to offer a compromise to ReSTOC that would have required the nonprofit group to fix up all of its homes within a year and rent some at market rates in exchange for the $700,000.

        Mr. Winburn's offer came after some council members accused the group of buying up property to block private developers from acquiring, rehabilitating and selling homes at market rates that the poor can't afford.

        Ms. Summers said that's not the strategy but said ReSTOC is not willing to make its property available at market rates.

        “That goes against our mission,” she said.

        Calling the request “unfair and unjust,” Ms. Summers said delays by the city are jeopardizing a project that would restore eight derelict buildings.

        Councilwoman Minette Cooper, who chairs the finance committee and supports the ReSTOC proposal, said the issue was delayed for a week at the request of city administrators who fear another rejection.

        “They don't want to see it go through to a no vote,” Ms. Cooper said, adding that she also hopes a compromise will be worked out.

        “I only hope the mayor does change his mind,” she said. “It has to be the mayor.”

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