~by Victoria Riley, GCNO publisher
The proposed construction of workforce housing in Jefferson’s north central neighborhood has brought dozens of residents to the last two city council meetings.
While the work of Greene County Development Corporation usually goes unnoticed by most residents, this project – 80 to 140 or so rental units built by Kading Construction to be managed by Kading Properties – is getting plenty of attention from Jefferson residents. Some of them have attended council meetings to make sure their elected council members know they aren’t in favor of the project.
The dissenters have several reasons, some of them valid.
First, the project comes at a significant cost to the city. Part of the deal is that the city install water/sewer lines and a road to the edge of the property GCDC is giving Kading. GCDC acquired the land in 1991 to have it available for industrial development. GCDC president Sid Jones explained at the Oct. 10 council meeting that the high cost of building the road kept the group from taking that step toward development.
Now GCDC wants the city to build the road and water/sewer service at an estimated cost of $1.2 million. Kading will build a needed retention pond, but the city would be expected to pay the cost to connect it to the storm water drainage system. Although the city intends to apply for a state REAP (Rural Innovation Stronger Economy) grant for part of the cost of the road, it’s a hefty cost to the city so GCDC can give away property.
GCDC argues that the infrastructure would not only allow for the housing development, but it would also prompt AAI/Spalding to purchase property from GCDC and expand its facility on the east side of Highway 4, leading to the creation of new jobs.
GCDC also wants the city to grant Kading a 10-year abatement of property taxes on the parcel. This project wouldn’t be the first to receive that length of abatement as an enticement to development.
Councilman Harry Ahrenholtz, who is on the GCDC board and has been a proponent of the project from the start, is on the council’s finance committee. He ran the numbers and concluded the project is financially viable for the city over the long term. The water/sewer revenue from Kading residents and the added road use tax the city would receive would, over the course of 20 years, repay the city’s cost of the project.
It’s still a lot of money, and I’d be more comfortable if the “financially viable” conclusion came from a third party, not someone who has been promoting a Kading project for two years.
Second, according to Margaret Saddoris and Nikki Uebel, both of whom own rental properties in Jefferson, there isn’t enough demand for rental units to justify the project.
The Kading project will be “workforce” housing, intended to be affordable to people earning the prevailing hourly wages paid by the county’s largest employers – Greene County Medical Center, Scranton Manufacturing, John Deere in Paton, AAI/Spalding, and a few others.
GCDC claims those employers have 200 unfilled jobs. Saddoris checked employers’ websites and found 60 positions open. Uebel says there’s not enough demand for housing to fill even 80 units, that there’s a 10-15 percent vacancy rate of rental units already, even before including the units Rowland Construction is building near the water tower.
The discrepancy in their numbers is worrying, particularly since Ahrenholtz’s figure of financial viability depends on at least 80 Kading units being filled.
It would be easier to support the Kading project if it were at a different location. We assume many Kading residents would be young families new to the community. That would be good news for the school district with a nice boost in enrollment, but the project isn’t within walking distance of any of the school buildings.
The property was acquired by GCDC for industrial or commercial development, and that’s what it’s suited for. If GCDC wants to add housing to the community, it would make more sense to add it closer to schools, playgrounds and parks.
But, it’s industrial property GCDC owns and is ready to give away. Two years ago when Kading and GCDC first began conversations about a project, Kading was willing to pay $15,000 an acre for the ground. That would have been more than $400,000, which would have gone a long way toward the needed infrastructure. Those discussions fizzled due to personnel changes at Kading, and now GCDC is eager enough to get a project going to give Kading the land.
Kading would be the winner – Jefferson taxpayers would be if not the losers, certainly the ones on the hook for a bunch of money.
The financial part of the project is a lot to think about.
Probably more worrisome for me is the underlying current against our community welcoming newcomers.
The Kading project is workforce housing, within a price range that people can afford on a 40-hour a week hourly job. Those people are here now and we all know them. They paint at PowerLift, they weld at Scranton Manufacturing, they build basketball backboards at AAI/Spalding, they scrub floors at Greene County Medical Center, or they work at Fareway or HyVee. They work hard and spend their time away from work going to their kids’ athletic events, maybe coaching them.
But, GCDC’s plans for a Multicultural Center – an organized effort to bring Latinos and other diverse populations to the county – comes at the same time as the Kading project and translates to some as an assault on the prevailing Whiteness of Greene County. There is fear that a new housing project would be filled with “those people,” those supposedly lawless people who would threaten our comfortable “culture,” as some who oppose the project have called it.
One way to be sure “those” people don’t move here is to limit the availability of decent housing. That’s where I step away from those who argue against the project.
I hope the future of the Kading project is determined only after an unbiased look at the finances of the project, not by an eagerness to justify a new road to make other industrial development easier, and definitely not by fear of who might live there.
