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Homes, duplexes and townhouses

Thu, 11/17/2011 - 12:12pm — john

According to the Mayor’s office the Myczak company will not be paid by the City of Bicknell and will or was required to apply and qualify through the people supplying the grant money for the project.
Pace also was not hired by the city but had to qualify in the same way that Myczak had to.

According to the Mayor’s office both contractors or engineering companies had to qualify and be hired by the State and/or Federal governments with Bicknell only supplying information required pertaining to the local areas that the project would or could be used.
They told me that according to the grants the money must be used according to their rules and regulations and that the city does not have any controlling interest in how or where the grant monies are used or paid.

As for qualifying for the houses, duplexes or townhouses a person must go to the grant people who can be contacted by going to the Bicknell City Hall, to the clerk’s office I think, and getting the proper contact information. The next step would be to qualify for the new homes according to their rules.
Once qualified the potential buyer must go to a bank to obtain a loan where I think that the grant people will provide the proper information to help the buyer to qualify for a loan including the possibility of supplying down payment assistance.

The help from the grant people includes but is not limited to:
Down payment assistance.
Reducing the sale price of the new home.
Allowing the down payment to be excused in a number of years, 10 or 15 they weren’t sure of the time; but the buyer must reside at the residence for that period of time.
Provide education regarding maintenance and upkeep of the property.
I believe adjusting the value to aide in the qualifying for the home loan.
I’m told that there are no apartments being built.
The area for the new construction I am told has not been determined to date; but will be chose by the grant people.

The income level they are looking for is mid to low income; no dollar amounts of required income were given.
Maplewood has been mentioned but this may only be a rumor.


John R. Stanczak


 

Comments

Sun, 11/20/2011 - 10:48am — Anonymous

Townhouses?

I just read and interesting story on the internet about whether foreclosed homes should be demolished and it also covered rehab, maintenence and blighted properties and what some cities are doing about the problems and it also gave some interesting suggestions including blighted property property and it s solution, much along the lines of the Neighborhood Distressed property Act that I mentioned once before here but the city does not seem to show any interest in.

As far as townhouses and the upcoming improvements all I can say is what happened at the meeting that I was invited to by Amy held in the mayors office in midsummer which was attended by the Mayor, Amy F, Elizabeth Ellis, another staff worker for Pace and an irate Kerry Currier. She was irate (and felt it was none of my business) because I was there even tho I was invited by Amy since Amy felt I had legitimate questions about the implementations of the upcoming grant and about the appraisals on the existing new homes.

The meeting opened with 3 or 4 offers to purchase for the mayor to sign on the Alton Street homes and then went to the plan by the city for the upcoming grant to build two apartment buildings with a total of 7 rental units which would be sold to any investor.

Pace and apparently the city were convinced that 7 new rentals would not affect future rental prospects for existing rental units here over my objections.

We then discussed the current practice of getting pared down property values on appraisals in order to sell below cost and Pace and the city were sure that would show that a low value was all that the properties were worth and by comparison all the rest of homes in Bicknell are worth less now.

I was not successful on getting that changed either.

To be honest I don't know if Pace or SIDC was responsible for acquiring either grant but by the way Pace was moving ahead with plans I assumed that Pace did.

Maybe since they implemented the first and the city thought it was so great that they were automatically going to do the second. But not so. BTW. maybe I am not looking close enough but I can't see any activity going on on any of the existing construction.

How can the rules change regarding the location and things to happen for the second grant compared with the first? Since the Mayor was 'hands on' with the first project maybe Pace took his suggestions and then said they were there own? So now he will not be 'hands on' on this project?

I have some reservations about Myszak and company since they are the same company who wrote a grant application that wants new streetlights and sidewalks and a walking path and to resurface part of Constitution Ave, all grandious schemes that ignore much needed things like sidewalk repair, street identification signs, storm sewer safety grates, a youth center and others.

I suspect Myszak may still lean toward the impractical when they implement this new grant. And whatever happened to the Bicknell Bulldog Development Committee that was set up to administer this second grant by action of the City Council? Was this another mistake by the city?