City continues to lose population

LIMA — The advertisement brought skepticism.

Katrice Lee, relocating from Sidney, heard about rental homes built by a group called New Lima Housing for the Future.

“I said, ‘New homes? In Lima? Wow!’” Lee recalled.

In the home on the city’s south side a year now, Lee loves it.

“It’s a whole new ballgame for me here,” Lee said. “When I saw it, I was like, ‘Oh my God. I would never imagine anything like it in Lima at that price.’ I was tickled pink.”

The homes, 60 in all, were built by New Lima in a partnership with Miller-Valentine homebuilders using a government subsidy program that’s highly competitive. New Lima has tried several times since for other projects, but can’t qualify.

The homes and neighborhoods they created stand as proof of what’s possible: safe, tidy, affordable, desirable. They also form an oasis of sorts, surrounded by the city’s challenge: crime, blight, abandonment and older homes left behind for life in the townships.

Officials have a plan to breathe new life into the city’s neighborhoods, but face massive hurdles and say it will take more than government supports, it will take private investors willing to believe in what’s possible.

Consider the demographics:

• The city has lost 16 percent of its population from 1990 to 2006, according to U.S. Census Bureau numbers. For a time, areas surrounding the city were growing, but now the population has stagnated; the county overall has lost 3.6 percent population over the same time, compared with nearly 6 percent growth in Ohio.

• The city’s housing is 12 percent vacant, compared with 8 percent of the county overall and 7 percent in Ohio. Only half of homes are owner-occupied, compared with 66 percent in the county and 64 percent in the state.

• The median household income in the city is about $27,000. City government derives half of its general fund revenue from income tax. The overall number for the county is $10,000 higher and Ohio’s median household income is about $40,000.

Costs of abandonment

Walking with Councilman Derry Glenn through the 6th Ward he represents, it’s tough to avoid broken glass along Central Avenue, Second, Hughes and Holmes. A critter darts underneath a vacant house too quickly to see exactly what it was. On too many blocks, more houses — boarded up, burned out, caved in — need to be taken down than not.

Lee, while feeling safe in her immediate area, said she worries about gunfire and drug crime happening several streets away.

Glenn, as always, is angry about what he sees and reflects a feeling of being forgotten.

“People shouldn’t have to live like this. You wouldn’t see this on Market Street. [City administrators] say they don’t have the money, but we find money for all sorts of things. This is a state of emergency.”

The city uses federal grant money to demolish buildings. This year, $80,000 was budgeted and it’s gone, with a long list of properties meeting requirements, but for which no funding exists. At about $4,000 to $5,000 a demolition, the city takes down between 20 to 40 buildings a year. Private efforts have helped, but it’s a drop in the bucket: The administration estimates the city has between 500 and 600 vacant or abandoned buildings.

The cost to take them all down would reach $3 million, a third of the police budget. Officials remain frustrated about the costs.

“It’s a source of nuisance and safety problems for police, for firefighters and an enormous amount of money that we spend in community development and code enforcement,” Mayor David Berger said. “When you ask someone in the general public, they say it’s our problem, the city’s problem. In fact, it’s a default of responsibility of thousands of property owners and what I often don’t hear is a recognition that’s it’s fellow neighbors and landlords who ought to be chastised. There’s a frustration of whether the right folks will be held accountable or whether it’s thrown on the front door of the municipal center for us to solve.”

The city attempts to fine property owners and collect on its costs, but it’s a small amount. Glenn wants property owners’ wages garnished, but administration officials don’t believe it’s feasible.

The city cannot improve things on its own, Community Development Director Amy Sackman Odum adds.

“The greatest myth is that the government of the city of Lima can do it all,” Odum said. “No one group can do that. We need a network of nonprofits, bankers, neighborhood groups and private investors to get it done.”

Participating in a study done this year by a coalition of housing agencies in the state, Lima estimated vacant and abandoned buildings and lots cost the city $1.86 million in 2006 in lost revenue and costs from police and fire action, boarding and mowing lawns.

However, the city’s Community Development Department does not have an accurate inventory of demolition-eligible property. Because of budget cuts, the department’s property maintenance code staff struggles to respond to complaints and can’t devote resources to inventory the city’s housing stock or fund software that would maintain it.

Odum said a more accurate range of vacant and abandoned buildings is in the 1,200 to 1,400 range, meaning for every property tracked by the city, another one to two are not.

Vacant housing is not a problem unique to Lima, said Lavea Brachman, co-director of the ReBuild Ohio consortium. While not criticizing the city, Brachman said developing an accurate picture of the problem is a good first step in tackling it.

Not having it and as a result not being able to characterize the vacancies as not livable, has hurt efforts to develop new housing.

New Lima has been turned down for other tax credits, most notably with a plan to demolish old project housing, the Steiner-McBride apartments, in favor of new senior cottages near the group’s first project, Martin Luther King Jr. Park and Allen County Health Partners’ health center.

How tax credits are awarded is up for review this year; New Lima Director Barbara Massa and others are lobbying for changes that would not hold vacancies against communities in the way they do now.

Leading by example

In redevelopment, big spaces are needed to make a real and lasting impact, and that takes big money rarely available. The city and Lima schools partnered to remove one of the worst neighborhoods in the city and replaced it with the new Senior High School campus. East of there, the Leo Hawk family bought up a stretch of properties that will be turned into a city park.

New Lima’s housing project totaled 60 homes, enough to create a new neighborhood. And 20 years ago, Berger’s former Rehab Project made viable a block of housing on Eureka Street. It remains a quiet, stable piece of the city.

Before the Rehab Project, that wasn’t the case, said Michael Blass, a former detective with the Lima Police Department now serving as president of Kibby Corners Development Corp.

“We would be there every day,” Blass said.

The projects have told city leaders and partners the work can be done. Kibby Corners was the community’s first attempt at a development corporation working on revitalizing the South Main Street corridor and surrounding neighborhoods.

One of Blass’ jobs these days is communicating the group’s aim.

“This is not a neighborhood association. This is not bake sales and car washes,” Blass said. “This is business.”

He’s not kidding. The group’s goal is to establish a three-year $400,000 budget for hiring a director and buying and redeveloping property. The city has demolished properties creating sizable tracts of land for new business and housing. Also on the list, admittedly a long way off, is developing market rate housing for mixed-use, diverse communities.

The task of just getting off the ground is daunting. Several development corporations went under recently in Columbus, often a shining example of redeveloped areas in Ohio, Massa said.

KCDC’s work is also about harnessing opportunity as the city tries to turn an economic corner. Berger has worked for more than 10 years to redevelop industrial brownfields there and is now developing a hi-tech research and development center, providing the kind of jobs and money to turn a town around.

What now?

For now, however, the city uses a variety of tools that may be only fingers in the dam.

Along with demolishing, the city uses a land bank program to acquire tax-delinquent properties and selling them for redevelopment. While the city sets strict limits on how long a property can be boarded up before facing penalties and fines, many properties have stood in that condition for years.

The city also partners with agencies to provide grants and loans to first-time homebuyers and rehabilitation funds to income-eligible homeowners to keep them in their homes. The city also has multiple tax rebates for improvements to existing buildings and building new.

All of that does not stem the tide of people with enough income who desire certain kinds of homes to go where they are being built.

Data show who’s left in the city is likely to be among the very young, very old, lower income, less educated or first-time homebuyers who will leave with their second home.

John Mason lived in the city for years until he looked around and realized he had safety and property concerns and no longer knew his neighbors. He moved to a condominium in Shawnee Township, where neighbors meet for potlucks and card games.

“There was a basic frustration that Lima couldn’t or chose not to enforce basic compliance with their codes — infrastructure going down, curbs not going in. You’re told not much could be done,” Mason said. “A basic frustration that nothing was going to improve caused us to seek what was already improved.”

Market demands

Much of the city’s housing stock is old. About 34 percent was built in 1939 or earlier; another 35 percent was built between 1940 and 1959, according to Census numbers.

David Adams, 8th Ward councilman and co-president of Riverside North Neighborhood Association with his wife, Estella, has lived in the couple’s Charles Street home since 1968. They fell in love with it the day they saw it, but understand the double-edged sword of pre-World War II housing.

Riverside North is producing a comprehensive plan for the area, working on a housing inventory and developing a plan to “sell” the benefits of living there: close to health care, culture and recreation.

“When we got to the old housing, we put it on both lists, an asset and liability,” Adams said.

If land can be cleared, and if resources can be found or developed, the city is in a phenomenal position to provide housing for people interested in new urbanism, a trend drawing back some professionals and baby boomers to city centers.

Of course, all of this is happening against a housing and credit crunch the likes of which hasn’t been seen nationally in decades.

Real estate agents don’t like to talk about it, but the local market is slumping compared to a year ago. The local housing market in March was down 18 percent in number of homes sold, 23 percent in dollar volume and 6 percent in average sale price.

Massa has two homes for sale at a new development, Whittier Place, planned for the site of a former elementary school. The houses, brand new and now a steal at less than $75,000, haven’t sold. Interest trickles in, but many people make too much money to qualify for the homes; many others have credit woes.

The choice for homebuyers remains: affordable housing in the city with worries about appreciation versus more expensive, newer housing without many of the fears. Government officials understand the city’s housing must meet market and consumer demands.

“It is not a charitable function. It is a business investment,” Odum said. “It has to be a business proposition that works for everyone. It’s very doable; it just takes that first person to make a step.”