Growth benefits low-income residents

Jeffrey Libby

Friday, Feb. 23, 2001 | 11:20 a.m.

The same city dollars that have motivated developers to tear down older homes to build commercial centers in their place will soon provide a benefit to the low-income people who were displaced or who are still living in the redeveloped areas.

Ever since the city logged its 200,000th resident last December, Henderson's low-income residents have been eligible for an 18-percent cut of tax revenues set aside by the city in redevelopment areas.

The amount of the payoff in new and rehabilitated affordable housing will depend largely on the future success developers have in completing their own projects and in attracting new businesses. Just when low-income wage-earners will first see a tangible benefit is unclear.

For fiscal year 2001-2002, the city's redevelopment agency expects growth will have yielded an extra $1.8 million in property taxes. That could mean as much as $317,000 for affordable housing.

Most of that money will come from the increased value of 1,307 acres in the old downtown. This is the site of the original 1,000 "townsites," houses built by the federal government for workers processing magnesium for the World War II effort.

The City Council designated old downtown as a redevelopment area in 1995. As a way of attracting the new construction, the city plans to use the additional property tax money to subsidize improvements at the developers' commercial projects.

Two other redevelopment areas totaling 1,160 acres have been approved this month. The Cornerstone and Tuscany Hills redevelopment areas include land scarred by former mining operations, but for the most part they remain undeveloped. The redevelopment agency expects them to create tax revenue much more quickly than the downtown redevelopment area.

City planners said Henderson's population, which hit 205,000 earlier this month, won't be official until Gov. Kenny Guinn authorizes numbers for the entire state in October. They could not say whether the new funding would be figured retroactively. The new distribution could be delayed until as late as July 2002, they said.

The boon to low-income residents is required by state law. The regulation is intended to remedy one of the primary consequences of urban renewal -- the elimination of affordable housing.

Henderson, like most other industrial centers across the nation, grew around a particular industry. In Henderson's case, it was the magnesium processing plants that aided the war effort. Of the 1,000 townsites, the city has bought up and paved over about 30 homes since 1995 to make way for future commercial improvements.

Mayor Jim Gibson cautioned that the expected boost to affordable housing would not be immediate.

"This will help many of those that people don't traditionally think of as the working poor," Gibson said. "This will help young people trying to get a start. It will help seniors who live on fixed incomes."

Gibson acknowledged that many of the more affluent Henderson residents will have a legitimate concern.

"They have to be comfortable knowing we're not doing anything that would destroy the value of their homes," Gibson said.

The first priority of Neighborhood Services, the city's housing department, however, is rehabilitating existing housing in old downtown and in Pittman, an area north of Lake Mead Drive and spreading on both sides of Boulder Highway. Both areas have older neighborhoods and many low-income residents.

New affordable housing will be built eventually, but it is not a first priority.

Doug Kuntz, affordable housing coordinator for Neighborhood Services, said the expected funding will most likely boost services his agency is already providing.

Neighborhood Services has received a preliminary blessing from the redevelopment agency for distributing the expected funds for that reason -- the housing department has the experience, staff and the programs already in place.

In the past year, Neighborhood Services distributed $400,000 in federal funds to low-income Henderson residents. The money helped provide home improvements ranging from new house paint to upgrades from swamp coolers to air-conditioning. The agency also helped finance reduced rates for first-time home-buyers.

To qualify for help with home repair in 2000, a family of four could earn no more than $42,800 annually, or 80 percent of median income.

At the same time Kuntz has been helping rehabilitate existing homes, he has also been pursuing public-private deals to build new affordable housing.

Within the next 18 months, three developments with 571 new rental units will open for low-income seniors. The monthly rents for one-bedroom apartments range from $270 to $470. He will pursue similar projects using redevelopment funds, he said.

Kuntz said there is no waiting line for services or rental units, but he doesn't expect the new funding to go unused.

Lloyd Rupp, pastor at St. Timothy's Episcopal Church, agreed. Rupp's downtown church feeds about 65 people a day, with more families showing toward the end of the month when fixed incomes run thin. The church also refers people to 42 other agencies. Rupp called the 18-percent redistribution "a good thing" that should work to "lift up areas rather than allow them to continue to degenerate."

He also said it was the duty of the city to find affordable housing for long-term residents who have sold their homes to the city in order to make way for the redevelopment effort in the downtown area.

"These are people who've lived here most their lives. They're old. Many of their homes are little better than tar shacks. But they bought and paid for them," Rupp said.

"And the city is going to give them market value? $40,000? I don't know of anything in the valley you can buy for $40,000. What that's telling me is they're going to kick these people out, tell them to get out of Dodge. I think that's morally reprehensible."

Bob Wilson, manager of the redevelopment agency, said by law the city is not allowed to displace residents without fair market compensation. The agency has $50,000 in its annual budget for relocation expenses for residents and businesses, he said.

"We don't displace people," Wilson said. "That's not our business. Our business is helping the community, and if you're displacing people, that's not helping."