Affordable-housing delay seen as good thing by officials

Jeffrey Libby

Friday, Aug. 3, 2001 | 10:45 a.m.

Subsidized housing in Henderson for low-income workers will not likely be built with redevelopment funding for another 10 years, but this is a good thing, Henderson redevelopment officials say.

This delay in low-income housing is because of Assembly Bill 650, passed by the 2001 Legislature and signed into law in June by the governor.

The law says a redevelopment agency must put aside tax money for subsidized housing only after the population reaches 300,000. Under the old state law, the threshold was 200,000, a population Henderson passed in December.

But Henderson redevelopment staffers and affordable housing agents say the law should actually help low-wage earners. This is because now several million dollars that would have gone toward low-income housing in Henderson will remain available for new commercial construction.

"So if we focus on generating jobs, we're still serving that same constituency," Bob Wilson, manager of Henderson's redevelopment agency, said.

By putting the money toward loans for small businesses, a facade improvement program and incentives to attract new construction, Wilson says the redevelopment agency will create new jobs for people already living in the downtown area and elsewhere.

For 2001-2002, Wilson expects three relatively new redevelopment areas to generate about $2.1 million in revenues for his agency.

Property taxes paid to the state are frozen for 30 years in redevelopment areas, allowing the increased tax value to be reinvested for improvements.

Doug Kuntz, affordable housing coordinator for Henderson, had been planning on having 18 percent of this year's redevelopment budget -- or $378,000 -- to help renovate rundown rental properties. But he will have to limit his funding to rehabilitation programs for homeowners and for several developments being built to house low-income seniors.

Even so, Kuntz is hesitant to criticize the new law.

Enacted at the recommendation of the Legislative Council Bureau, the law strives to maintain the status quo, state attorney Scott Wasserman said. And even if the Henderson population passes 300,000 in 2007 as projected, that would not automatically trigger a legal need to put money toward affordable housing, he said. This is because the law goes by census figures, which won't be released again until 2010.

Kuntz and other Henderson officials point to the city's other advantage for low-income workers in addition to the availability of jobs. The city ranks among the top 45 places across the nation with the shortest work commutes, according to a study released in May by the Washington, D.C.-based Brookings Institution.

The two-fold goal of Henderson officials is plentiful jobs within a reasonable commute. They say this is a better long-term objective than subsidized housing.