Hudson Street Apartment Project Funded

Very interesting... Not bad!

aaaah, 302 hudson, the home i grew up in...it is such an interesting neighborhood, i just hope that the aesthetics will compliment the classic look of this kleinhans/allentown neighborhood, so close to downtown, allen, the lake, really a great location..i've rooted for this neighborhood literally my whole life, i hope this new proposal will benefit it.

At nearly $200,000 per apartment, this project NEEDS to aesthetically compliment the neighborhood, and do all the other things it plans.

The front porches need a roof over the 2nd floor, and the railings should be wood to give privacy.

I love how this was a "Country" estate at one time!

Would have liked to see that money go to rehabs instead of new builds. I understand this is a very well intended project but Heart... should focus on putting out more 263 Hudsons to add value to existing housing stock. I think it is a lot more "green" to build on existing homes rather than contrubuting to the process that sends them to the landfill. Besides, with insulation, new windows, hvac and appliances you can make an old victorian home energy efficient.

I must say that the buildings look very nice compared with the suburban style homes that get built on the East Side. At least these new builds fit in better with the rest of the neighborhood.

Rumor has it, Heart of the City is not playing nice with neighborhood and I have heard a board memember viciously bashing local residents because they are conserned about the project. Not professional.
I think the neighborhood is fantastic and really does not need subsidized/project housing. I agree that money should go into rehab and not new builds.

This is Green living for section 8 housing. Like those people actually care! Of course Heart of the City board
members think this is a great project it's not next to
there house in the suburbs!!!
There will be many houses for sale in allentown if this
project gets built-including ours!!!

Are these market rate apts or section 8 apts?

More section 8 in Allentown suprises anyone how? Good thing Price Rite is around the corner.

People who refer to the poor as "those people" are scum.

So low-income housing shouldn't go in a "fantastic" neighborhood? Where should it go then? Should we concentrate more and more poverty in lousy neighborhoods? Or maybe we should put it at the bottom of the ocean, or on the side of an active volcano?

Section 8 housing would be a death sentence to the progress made in this neighborhood. Say what you will and quote all the social justice BS that makes you happy, poverty breeds crime and drives higher income people away. The homes in this neighborhood have a lot of wonderful history that needs to be preserved. Low-income families, even if they did care about preserving the history, can't afford to. Look at Elmwood Village; that area has progressed due to influx of families and higher-income people - not green apartments rented to Section 8 qualified people.

It's a cruel world and a hard realization, but increasing the income per capita in this area is the only way to save it. Otherwise, it's going to fall back into drugs, violence, overwhelming poverty, neglect:

BUT AT LEAST THEY'LL BE LIVING EFFICIENTLY!!!!

Look, we all know there are problems with the poverty-industrial complex in Buffalo, and sometimes projects that appear well-meaning on the surface do little more than perpetuate the status quo. However, in this case, the article says the project involves 4 apartments. Four apartments rented to low-income people will NOT cause the area to fall back "into drugs, violence, overwhelming poverty, neglect."

Scott Miller and marybethbartlett, the only thing that could make that happen would be if YOU LEAVE. Not if 4 low-income families move in. If this was a 400-unit project, you might have more of a gripe about concentrated poverty. But the odds are that these 4 families will be nice people and good neighbors who want to fit in to the neighborhood aesthetic you have established already.

The British after WWII created the concept of creating housing specifically for the poor and placing them in the same buildings or location. Americans later followed suite creating the public housing projects. What the British learned in the 90's is the concept does not work. It creates a permanent underclass of people and encourages crime and social unrest. It has taken Americans longer to accept the fact that exclusive housing for the poor does not work in the US either. Mixed income housing in diverse communities has proven to decrease poverty and crime and returns to the age old social structures where opportunities and leaning were possible for those who cared to partake. Our energy crisis is not only a concern for the rich but for everyone. The Hudson Street project is a good idea.

This is a good project. Eight units among thousands is not going to tip the scales. Many already living in the neighborhood would doubtless qualify under the income guidelines.

As a landlord, I've had section 8 tenants. It is possible to accept section 8 and still be responsible. There are many bad section 8 tenants, but there are very good ones, too. Product this appealing will create a wide, deep pool of applicants. Heart of the City will be able to cherry pick the best tenants because this product will be among the best available for that market. The neighborhood should embrace this development. It fills a vacant gap nicely and enhances the street's appearance.

The reality is that low income housing is one of the only places development money exists. Without that funding, the alternative for this site is continued vacancy. No one is clamoring to build new market rate homes here. This project is nicely scaled and placed, imo.

I also had good experiences with section 8 tenants and the program holds landlords responsible for the proper maintenance of their properties as well.
Blaming poor people for crime is simplistic, poor people are more likely to be the victims of crime than the perpetrators. Those wishing to live in a monoculture of upper income households probably shouldn't chose Allentown or any city neighborhood.

1. I'll repeat my question: if not here, where should low income housing be located? If low income housing by definition harms those who live nearby (and this is the clear implication), then why should people on Hudson Street be spared that harm while people somewhere else have it inflicted on them?

2. I think there's something funny -- and also terribly sad -- about the idea that poor people should be kept out of the area so that the area can avoid "falling back into poverty." It's a tautology that misses the whole point of why we want our neighborhoods to improve -- to lessen poverty, right? Not just push it to some poorer, darker corner of the city, but to actually start to make a dent in it.

3. "The homes in this neighborhood have a lot of wonderful history that needs to be preserved. Low-income families, even if they did care about preserving the history, can't afford to." This statement would seem to imply that preserving old houses is more important than providing low income people with a decent place to live. Care to clarify?

Why wouldn't it be better to use the $1.5M to rehab four city-owned doubles that are currently long term vacant and on the path to demolition but aren't too far gone to be saved? The four with the most potential, as the saying goes. The end result could still be used for Sec 8 and managed by this same org.

In fact $375K each ($1.5M divided by 4) might be more than enough, so it might be able to fund more than 4 doubles.

Why didn't anyone do their research before writing this?
Why didn't anyone interview the young couple that has received approval from nearly everyone, including Byron Brown to purchase and restore this property to it's former glory?
Why has no one interviewed Heart of City to ask why they are dealing so underhandedly with this couple?
Once again another one sided report brought to you by Buffalo Rising!

This is a perfect infill redevelopment of the Hudson Street site. I love the victorian style architecture of the new townhouses. This is an outstanding example of how new design and construction can be sympathetic to its surrounding urban environment.

A few thoughts on a discussion with a lot of misinformation, particularly from Ms. Bartlett.

1. This was not funded as Section 8 Housing. It was funded as affordable rental housing by NYS Division of Housing & Community Renewal (DHCR) to serve tenants at or below 60% of area median income (AMI). Because the limits are calculated based on county income levels, a family of four would have to make less than $38,100.

2. To qualify for Section 8, a family has to be below 50% of median income. It's certainly possible that no Section 8 families will live here, because there may be sufficient demand from families between 50% and 60% of AMI.

3. The City of Buffalo contracts with the Rental Assistance Corporation of Buffalo (RACB) as its' primary Section 8 administrator. The BMHA is a small, secondary, provider of Section 8 assistance. Belmont Shelter administers a third Section 8 program under contract with Erie County, making Erie County one of the few counties in the country with three Section 8 administrators.

4. The apartments with Section 8 tenants are the only residential units in the city to receive annual interior and exterior inspections to insure that they meet federal housing quality standards (HQS). Failure to maintain HQS results in termination of the rental assistance to the landlord. RACB annually receives HUD's highest rankings as a Section 8 administrator.

5. DHCR enforces an occupancy standard for all funded projects - no less than one person and no more than two persons per bedroom. Therefore, the 2 bedroom units can have no more than 4 persons & the 3 bedroom units can have no more than 6 persons.

6. Artspace Buffalo is 100% affordable housing with 4 income bands: 30% (which is the federal poverty level), 50% (the Section 8 level), 60% (the maximum income for federal housing tax credits, and 90% (the maximum for state housing tax credits). It was designed as a mixed-use, mixed-income project that would hopefully add value to mid-town Buffalo, and spur other private sector investment, which it appears to be doing.

7. IS Lofts was funded with state housing tax credits, and with the exception of 2 market-rate units, serves person/families below 90% of AMI.

8. Oak Street School has affordable housing units, and almost surely has several Section 8 tenants.

9. The Hudson/Plymouth units will add value to this corner, and encourage additional investment by other homeowners, and landlords. But I acknowledge that even folks who spend their careers in affordable housing are troubled by how expensive it is to put these deals together, and get them built.

10. To end on a positive note, DHCR yesterday finally funded, after a four-year crusade, St. Martin Village - the former German Roman Catholic Orphan Home on Dodge Street - with federal housing credits.

i am not going to go through and read all "do gooder " stuff on these posts because so many defy common sense for working families of Buffalo. I wonder how many of the advocates of these poverty housing projects are either administrators of the funds or recipients of the project.
I have said it before and will say it again the Mayor, Common Council and these poverty advocates have no respect for the fact that when a family buys a house, works to establish it as their home and neighborhood they have a right to expect that government policies would help to protect that investment. That protection comes in many forms, police, neighborhood parks, schools in the area for young children and programs for kids. The Elmwood Village Charter School is a response to the lack of common council interest and board of education interest in this area. There is not a person who works for a living who buys a house for $125k and spends money fixing and maintaining, paying the property taxes and fees who expects or wants to sell it for $75K in 15-20 years. Only the politicians who run our city consider that any investment. That is exactly why the homes that the Mayor is building on the east side have to be so heavily subsidized in order to find buyers. The city is discounting the loss of value already. The Mayor has expanded the poverty program so that now middle class homeowners in this city are subsidizing not only the housing for the poor but subsidizing housing that is for middle class wage earners and subsidizing condo developments for upper middle class ($700K) condos on the waterfront. I do not know the property tax details for the old federal Dulski building conversion. When the Mayor and Common Council of Buffalo undermine the investments of middle class families they harm all areas of the city. This city's biggest problem is the falling housing values across most of the city. Normal people will not buy a house in neighborhood that is going to lose value.
This Mayor and Common Council should be judged on how many homes are being built in this city without subsidies. What is there value? Where are they being built? I suspect that you could very easily count the number of homes that are built without assistance.

$200,000 per unit is way too expensive to fund and ludicrous to try explain!

Have a competition to design and build a project as least costly as possible.
per skarnath --
"...even folks who spend their careers in affordable housing are troubled by how expensive it is to put these deals together, and get them built."

Oh, and I don't get the three front doors at each unit when there are four apartments. The floor plans are too tiny to figure it out.

Anyone else got a clue?

1.) Rehabs are much more cost-effective than new builds.
2.) These properties will be coming off the tax rolls and will continue the property tax hemorrhage in Buffalo.
3.) All bureaucratic & policy procedures aside; when will there be a substantive change so that this City and region will afford to fund its infrastructure and public needs?

It's funny how people that don't live in this neighborhood think building more low income rental properties is a good idea. If this new build was going to be owner occupied we would be thrilled. this neighborhood needs owner occupied homes to keep it stable.
One of our other main concerns is long term-what if heart of the city dissolves in five years-then who takes over???? BMH or HOMES or it's sold to some slum landlord.
Maybe my neighbors and my husband and I are wrong, maybe it would turn out to be fine. But honestly we would rather not find out.
Blackrocklifer-have respect for the WORKING poor-not so much for the non-working poor, leeches of society. And I don't want to hear there are no jobs out there- I have had a job posting on craigs list for 4 months. It's not the perfect job but any job is better than no job.