Española city councilors Monday night voted 7-1 on a new lease for all three of its low income housing neighborhoods to Santa Fe Civic Housing Authority. The Authority requested the 99-year lease so it can apply for a $4 million U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development grant, according to Authority Deputy Director Rick Lopez.
“The three housing sites have 178 units that will be renovated,” Lopez said. “They’ll get new appliances, air conditioning, floors, cabinets, the works.”
Currently low income housing units do not have air conditioning, he said. Some refrigerators are 30 years old.
The massive remodel project would be done in steps, Lopez said. The project would run through summer 2014 but would result in all the houses updated at once.
“HUD will grant us $200,000 at a time and that’s great but we’ll never catch up with all the improvements needed in all the units,” he said.
City attorney Frank Coppler told the council HUD was able to fund the loans because it goes out in the private market and sells low income tax credits at about 4 percent.
The discussion turned to who owns the low income housing sites and Coppler said the city owns them, but the Authority leases them.
Councilor Pedro Valdez said he remembered from the initial agreement that the city owns the property but HUD built and owns the units. Coppler agreed.
The current 30-year lease between the city and the Authority has 25 years remaining. The new lease would replace it.
Councilor Robert Seeds said he didn’t like the idea of Santa Fe running the Española housing and suggested the city step up and take responsibility.
“It breaks my heart we’re considering letting it go,” Seeds said.
When Seeds asked if the city could take the housing back from Santa Fe, Valdez reminded him of the situation when the Authority took over.
“When you guys (the Authority) took over, things got better,” Valdez said. “It was a mess because of politics and favoritism.”
Councilor Eric Radosavich said giving the lease to the Authority is probably the only way the units will get remodeled.
“These people don’t deserve to live that way,” he said.
Lopez said the Authority was the only one in New Mexico and one of a handful in the southwest to be allowed to apply for the funds.
“If we don’t secure this property, we’ll lose the funding,” he said. “We need to get in multi-housing to get the funding.”
Seeds was the dissenting vote in the final decision.