I’ve been meaning to write about the swamplands behind the house but have been so busy writing about Outlook that I haven’t had time… short version is that a developer wants to build low income housing in the swamp, because swampland is cheap and poor people don’t deserve better.
(That last part is sarcasm BTW. I’d like to see more help given to low income people to buy homes instead of throwing rent money down the drain – and no, the housing meltdown was not caused by poor people buying houses but greedy, lying banksters.)
I am opposed to Gibbs Place project for several reasons:
- I’m a nature lover and I don’t want to see the swamp built-up. A flock of wild turkeys, deer, coyotes, and other assorted animals live there. There is a nesting pair of Baltimore Orioles, a red-headed woodpecker, barn owls, hummingbirds, and bats who call it their home.
- Throwing poor people into a swamp because the land is cheap is wrong. Especially when Sheffield Lake has enough low income housing and probably enough vacancies. (One complex is sitting empty – fix it up and fill it up before paving over more land).
- It would hurt the local residents who own rental property. These people spend their rental income locally and this helps the community. Gibbs Place will suck income out of the area.
- It would lower my property value. Anyone who tries to say otherwise has a few screws loose. There is no way you can build cheap housing next to an existing development and not affect the values of the neighboring homes.
We lost of a lot of value in the housing crash as it was. If the property values go down I’ll be underwater forever. But really, it’s more than just what will happen to my property value – and they could reduce the hit if they’d leave a 50 ft strip of woods between the existing houses and the new development.
Two of our neighbors put their houses on the market because the proposed development would be in their backyards. I mean “in their backyards” – they have short lots. The developer plans to put a basketball court 30 feet from what is currently a $200,000 house. It obviously won’t remain a $200,000 house if that happens.
We’re on the end of a cul-de-sac and have a deeper lot, so the cheap houses won’t be on top of us, but would still be close… just not that close. And yes, they would be cheap houses – 1500 SQ FT 2 story homes with 2 car garages, built on slabs… expected cost is less than $100,000 per house, ready to move in.
If they’d leave a 50 ft buffer of trees between that development and ours, our property values wouldn’t dive (so much) and it could work… well, except for the “dumping poor people in a swamp” part. Of course, if they left a wooded strip, the lot wouldn’t be wide enough… they need to build as close to the property lines as possible to fit 48 houses, a clubhouse, a basketball court and gardens in.
During a site inspection, the developer told the state the land was wet due to excessive snow melt. What a liar! It’s always wet, except in periods of extreme drought, when it is cracked mud. (The salamanders and frogs visit my fish pond when the swamp is dry.)
The good news is that if the developer plans to go ahead with “Gibbs Place”, it won’t be with state funded tax credits/offsets. The housing authority denied their proposal, ranking it next to last in the competition for funding. Hooray for the state doing something right for the area residents and potential future residents!
Is it too much to hope that this means the project is dead, dead, dead? Because the project received such low marks, the Ohio housing authority does not expect them to resubmit this project. They’ll need private funding, and no tax credits, to continue the project.
