Affordable housing mix snags condo project
by Teya Vitu on Feb. 20, 2008, under Edge, LocalUncertainty reigns supreme for a luxury condo proposal at Speedway Boulevard and Stone Avenue that stirred up controversy in the Dunbar/Spring neighborhood for more than two years.
Will it receive neighborhood approval? What will the City Council do, as one-third of the One West Holdings proposal falls on city-owned land? Will the developer get the tax credits needed for the many affordable housing units that would mix with $285,000 to $325,000 condos?
In fall 2006, neighborhood residents were evenly divided on the proposal to have 10 affordable housing units within the 110-condo development. The prevailing half of the Dunbar/Spring Neighborhood Association stuck to its earlier demand for 33 percent affordable units.
One West went away for more than a year.
This week, One West and a new partner, International Sonoran Desert Alliance, returned to Dunbar/Spring with an updated proposal providing 32 affordable units, or 29 percent of the 110-condo proposal.
The association stuck with its 33 percent threshold with a twist. The neighbors voted 27-26 in favor of the 29 percent proposal, but an earlier vote dictated that a two-thirds vote would be required.
Association secretary Ian Fritz said One West would have gotten the two-thirds vote had the developer offered 33 percent affordable housing instead of 29 percent.
Uncertainty set in. Does the two-thirds vote requirement violate the association’s simple majority requirements? There was no clear answer at the meeting earlier this week.
A few more uncertainties trump obstacles Dunbar/Spring put into play.
Will the City Council override the neighborhood association? Will the alliance get the state low-income housing tax credits necessary to secure $8 million in financing to “buy” the affordable units from One West? What will alliance project manager Jim Wilcox tell his board later this week?
Without the tax credits, One West may abandon the condo plan and build an office complex on the 60,000 square feet that One West owns, which wraps around the city-owned corner lot, said Colin Reilly, a One West partner.
Wilcox said the deadline to apply for tax credits is March 15. He hopes to have a City Council commitment before then to bolster his tax credit application.
City Council member Regina Romero, who represents Dunbar/Spring, sides with One West, the alliance and the 29 percent affordable commitment more than the split neighborhood’s leaning toward 33 percent.
“I think the right thing to do is give (the alliance) my support to go for the tax credits,” said Romero, whose passion is affordable housing.
Romero has not thought out a next step on how the city can give official support to Wilcox tax-credit application. She’s pondering a letter from the City Council or city urban planners, or just waiting to see if Wilcox gets the tax credit.
Romero lauds Dunbar/Spring for tenaciously sticking to the affordable housing demands for two years, but she believes the split neighborhood’s continued resistance is counterproductive.
“I think they’re stuck on something else,” she said. “I’m really disappointed that the neighborhood is not celebrating their victory (in getting a 29 percent commitment).”
The primary opposition to One West was the 33/29 percent affordable housing dilemma, but individual agendas also surfaced at the neighborhood meeting attended by about 60 people. These ranged from complaints that One West would block the view of the mountains to demands insisting on 100 percent affordable housing for the debated southwest corner of Speedway and Stone.
The siege between Dunbar/Spring and One West dates back to March 2006. In the preceding months, Dunbar/Spring Neighborhood Association officers won a number of concessions from One West, including lowering the building’s height along Ninth Avenue; enclosing parking within the complex; and building to Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design standards.
All that was for naught when the proposal was presented to a broader group of 40 neighbors. All that mattered then was the affordable housing question.
One West offered six affordable units measuring 750 square feet with the 110-condo proposal, where the typical condo size was 1,500 square feet.
By the time that March 2006 neighborhood meeting was over, the association set a standard that One West must have 33 percent affordable housing. The neighborhood association has a say because about one-third of the land under consideration is city-owned, and the City Council gives serious consideration to neighborhood association decisions.
Neighborhood affordable housing advocates derived the 33 percent figure from the 2000 city Stone Avenue Corridor Plan, which provided “measures for a livable corridor.” The plan recommends mixed-income housing for Stone with “approximately one-third affordable.”
The One West saga became surreal in August and September 2006. One West went door-to-door in Dunbar/Spring to curry enough support to get neighborhood approval with a 64-40 vote for a complex now offering 10 affordable units. That meeting was the largest known gathering for a Dunbar/Spring Neighborhood Association meeting.
The next month, another sizeable gathering of neighbors reversed the August vote, and since then the decision has stood that Dunbar/Spring wanted 33 percent affordable housing from One West.
2007 was a quiet year. One West regrouped and Dunbar/Spring tried to establish a process to avoid month-to-month vote reversals.
One West returned this month to Dunbar/Spring with a revised proposal and a new partner willing to provide 32 affordable units, 29 percent of the 110-condo total.
All but two would measure between 1,000 and 1,400 square feet with the average just under 1,100 square feet. Monthly rents would mostly fall in the $290 to $560 range for studio, one and two bedroom apartments, said Jim Wilcox, project manager for International Sonoran Desert Alliance.
“These are much larger than the average affordable unit,” Wilcox said.
The alliance last year converted the 1919 Curley School in Ajo into a 30-unit affordable housing Curley School Artisan Lofts.
Wilcox shopped around in downtown neighborhoods to partner with a Tucson housing developer to add the affordable aspects to market-rate projects. One West appealed most to him.
The Dunbar/Spring neighborhood has split pretty much in half throughout the two years of One West debate. Neighborhood leaders this week complained about how One West suddenly reappeared earlier this month saying that Wilcox had a March 15 deadline to apply for state low-income housing tax credits.
“There was a rush for a special meeting, there was a rush for this meeting,” said Ian Fritz, secretary of the neighborhood association, where the new One West/ISDA proposal was unveiled this week to about 60 residents. “I think it’s a mistake to be rushed into voting for this. We need more time to discuss this. This is the only project we have any say over.”
The Dunbar/Spring neighborhood is bounded by Speedway, Stone Avenue, Sixth Street and Main Avenue. It includes about 400 homes with a median income of about 77 percent of the Tucson overall median income and has a 30.7 percent poverty rate compared to 18.4 percent citywide, according to census data.
