Low-income housing at Watuppa Heights: "This community cannot shoulder much more"
http://www.heraldnews.com/article/20140617/NEWS/140616365/11669/NEWS
Jo C. Goode
Herald News Staff Reporter
Posted Jun. 17, 2014 @ 11:35 pm
Updated Jun 17, 2014 at 11:48 PM
FALL RIVER — With a controversial 50-unit low-income housing project slated for construction at the Watuppa Heights property by the Fall River Housing Authority and authorized by the Department of Housing and Community Development, local leaders and city residents claim the state is violating a 2002 act governing the redevelopment of the property.
“The law is the law,” said state Sen. Michael Rodrigues, who was involved in the passage of the legislation 12 years ago.
Calling it one of the “most contentious, heated debates” during his tenure as a state senator, Rodrigues recalled that the legislation to redevelop Watuppa Heights was barely passed by the Legislature. Then acting Gov. Jane Swift vetoed the act, which the legislators voted to override.
“We don’t want it,” said Helen Rego, vice president of the Niagara Neighborhood Association. “There is enough low-income housing in the city. Let other communities, like Brockton or Boston, help support people.”
Rego and others in the Niagara community have been “fighting this all the way,” and she said she wants the state to honor the law that calls for low-income, single-family homes to be developed at Watuppa Heights.
State Rep. Carole Fiola said she’s been attempting to work with DHCD, other delegates, Mayor Will Flanagan, City Administrator Cathy Ann Viveiros and Kenneth Fiola Jr., vice president of the Fall River Office of Economic Development, to try to reverse plans for the 50-unit development.
The city, Fiola said, has done its fair share of providing low-income housing, with many of the residents coming from outside the city.
“This community cannot shoulder much more,” Fiola said. “If we don’t put the brakes on this it’s going to open the floodgates. If we just roll over we’ll be living with this decision for 30 years.”
Local leaders contend that the scope of the Fall River Housing Authority project opposes the 2002 legislation that allowed for the dilapidated facility to be redeveloped through a Housing Improvement Plan to provide a minimum of 26 single-family units affordable to people earning less than 80 percent of the area median income guidelines. At least half of the homes would be made available to families who earn less than 50 percent of the area median incom.
The act also required that 100 replacement low-income units be built at the site or other locations around the city. Nothing in the legislation requires the development of 50 units of affordable rental space.
A request to DHCD for comment was not returned and Fall River Housing Authority Executive Director David Sullivan could not be immediately be reached by telephone.
The housing authority has received approval to send out a request for proposals by DHCD for the 50 units, but last week the housing authority tabled releasing the bid proposal, Viveiros said.
The RFP reflects a portion of a Housing Improvement Plan sponsored by the DHCD that allowed the demolition of the boarded-up 100-unit Watuppa project, which was approved by a 5-4 margin by the City Council and signed and lauded by Mayor Will Flanagan in December 2011. The city committed to investing $4 million in the project.
The Housing Improve-ment Plan presented to the city not only contradicts the 2002 legislation, but also a 2009 memorandum of understanding between the state through DHCD, the Fall River Housing Authority and the city.
According to the agreement, of the 50 one- to four-bedroom low-income units on the nine-acre site, 24 units would be made available to extremely low-income residents.
The redevelopment plan also calls for no less than 11 homes built for low-income ownership and 1.5 acres of open space for use of the housing project’s residents and the public.
However, the RFP only addresses requests from developers to build the 50-unit rental apartments.
Viveiros said that since 2002, the city has gone beyond replicating 100 of the required low-income units, adding an additional 248 affordable housing residences.
Viveiros said the city is prepared to submit an alternative plan to DHCD, which will be presented to the City Council on Tuesday.
The administration’s plan, authored by Kenneth Fiola Jr., includes 13 single-family homes for owners who are at 80 percent area median income and 13 single-family homes for owners who are at 50 percent area median income.