In attempt to revitalize the City of Grande Prairie Downtown Core, two projects were launched. The Downtown Incentives Program & Policy were developed to encourage business and property owners within the Downtown, an incentive program to invest in higher density residential development, building and facade improvements. The Down town Rehabilitation and Street Scaping Project was a multi-phase project designed to revitalize the down town through infrastructure upgrades and an updated streetscape design.
The Downtown Incentives Program was successful in offering financial incentives/subsidies to property owners under three different categories; Urban Residential Development, Facade Improvement and Patio Grant. The Urban Residential Grant offered 4 options ranging from $15,000 for mixed use apartments with ground floor commercial use, $10,000 for 24+ units residential, matching grant for water and wastewater connections, and option to defer the General Municipal Tax Portion of the Incremental Assessed Value for a max of 3 years. Facade Improvements were a matching grant of $750 per Front Foot or $50,000 for improvements of aesthetic appeal, pedestrian
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Above ground upgrades included roadway improvements, intersections, curbs and gutters, sidewalks, benches lights and trees. In 2016, the City was allocated $20,000,000.00 in Municipal Sustainability Initiative for Phase 1 & 2 of this project and additional funding through Aquaterra for water and sanitary infrastructure replacement. Phase one was scheduled to take two months (weather pending) to complete. Council recognized that the infrastructure improvement/repairs were imperative to service delivery, council was very split on the beautification element. The beatification project was won by one council vote and was a contentious issue from the
If I were Holbrook my initial goal would be to correct the water and sanitary sewer systems problem. I believe it is the community responsibility to pay for the up-keep and maintenance of the two facilities, because it is the community who is reaping the benefits of these facilities. I would recommend the council to combine the sewer (330,800) and water (158,090) expenditures to the sewer (113,000) and water (379,350) capital program expenditures, and incorporate the two as one revenue fee. This would allow the revenue fees to pay for the operating cost and the reconstruction cost of the two facilities. Making them one fee would give the council more leeway in increasing total revenue cost for these services. In general, people tend to see one bill instead of two as a deal instead of a problem. This is almost like the buy one get one free philosophy; you know the store has raise the price of the item you are purchasing so that you are paying for the item you’re getting free. The propose revenue fee would total 648,170. The 700 water customers and the 3000 sewer customers would pay for this fee. Assuming that the 700 water customers were already included in the 3000 sewer customers, the total customer for the two services would equal 2300. I would divide the total re...
Chicago Housing Authority. Plan for Transformation, Year 3, Moving to Work, Annual Plan FY2002. 16 Oct. 2001.
Lately I have noticed numerous abandoned buildings around the Battle Creek area; the sight makes our city look run down and cheap. I believe something must be done about this issue such as turning the buildings into new city attractions. Two vacant buildings that come to mind are the run down State Police Station and the dilapidated Family Fare store.
Because of the amount of overdeveloped areas that are now vacant, the desire to renovate old vacant properties and land plots has all but disappeared. What if there was a beneficial solution to unused land plots in need of rehab and redesign? What if, instead of paving over every leftover inch of grass and dirt in urban areas to make room for more parking for our daily commuting polluters, we instead reinvent that land for a purpose that is both beneficial to our
...t of owning a rental property is more than the income it produces. The bottom line is that owning a rental property is a business, a way of making a living for most property owners, and must be viewed as such. My idea is to develop a policy that requires all residential multi-unit buildings to provide a percentage of rental units to serve the following populations: economically disadvantaged, veterans, and middle income. Resources such as low interest capital improvement loans, government subsidies to offset low income rates, allowable rent increases based on tenants length of tenancy and change in income, will be made available to property owners who offer more than the required number of units at affordable rents. The funding for these would come from the newly formed San Francisco program, Housing Opportunities Promoting Equality, known as the H.O.P.E. Program.
According to Realtytrac.com, 1 in every 505 houses in Pasco is foreclosed, and 34% of these foreclosed houses end up being owned by the bank (Pasco County Real Estate Trends & Market Info,2016). That equates to thousands of square feet of housing that is not being occupied or used for any specific purpose. With money raised from a sales tax similar to "Pennies for Pasco", a number of foreclosed houses could be purchased, renovated, and used to house people lacking a home. Homes in New Port Richey, for example, average at about 130,000$.( Pasco Real Estate - Pasco County FL Homes For Sale ,2016). With 139 Million dollars, over 1,000 houses could be bought. Due to the intense humidity and heat during the summer, this type of housing unit would be especially important during the summer months. Housing would also be helpful in the cold months when temperatures drop into the 40s. It would give the homeless an opportunity to have a comfortable place to sleep, eat, and become grounded enough to start seeking job
DiPasquale, Denise. “Rental Housing: Current Market Conditions and the Role of Federal Policy.” Cityscape Vol. 13, No. 2, US Department of Housing and Urban Development (2011): 57-70.
One major example of the help that was put into areas of Toronto is prominent is Regent Park, Toronto before gentrification. Regent Park showed that there are 65% apartments and houses that are market price but then there are 35% of the properties that are rent geared to income (Williams, 2009). Even though this was not a high percentage and was still beneficial to people who worked near the location of Regent Park in Toronto. Making it easier to access everyday necessities can make a lot of other expenses in life go down as well, when you do not have to worry about paying more than 30% of your income. Regent Park had a revitalization project to help turn this area from an area with high poverty rates to a nicer area by demolishing most of the public housing pushing the poorer people out of the area.
The IZ programs are likely to take several years to be effective and support low to moderate-income residents. Developers and administrators need some time to be well informed to the new program. The Furman Center research team finds that the programs in San Francisco region exempt smaller projects or provide density bonuses tend to produce more units, indicating that more flexible programs may result in greater production. In the Washington D.C area, IZ programs have produced a total of 15,252 affordable units (as of 2003). In San Francisco area, IZ programs have produced 9,154 affordable units (as of 2004), and the programs with density bonuses and exemptions for smaller projects...
Increase the distribution of funding by local governments for affordable housing, by developing different techniques to reap a max funding.
There are many examples of cities reforming itself over time, one significant example is Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. More than a hundred years after the discovery of gold that drew thousands of migrants to Vancouver, the city has changed a lot, and so does one of its oldest community: Downtown Eastside. Began as a small town for workers that migrants frequently, after these workers moved away with all the money they have made, Downtown Eastside faced many hardships and changes. As a city, Vancouver gave much support to improve the area’s living quality and economics, known as a process called gentrification. But is this process really benefiting everyone living in Downtown Eastside? The answer is no. Gentrification towards DTES(Downtown Eastside) did not benefit the all the inhabitants of the area. Reasons are the new rent price of the area is much higher than before the gentrification, new businesses are not community-minded, and the old culture and lifestyle of the DTES is getting erased by the new residents.
This will cause lower income residents to move out of their homes. It is also stated that the action of restoring damaged property would be a positive because it attracts those who can afford the newly renovated homes. This also includes the physical rehabilitation of certain neighborhoods that are in poor conditions. Once these neighborhoods are renovated this will invite those who choose to invest in this area and new businesses will open. However, the negative would be that lower income residents will still be forced to move out because rent prices would increase due to the new demand.(Atikinson, 2004, p.
"Building Partnerships to Revitalize America's Neighborhoods." HBCU Central (Winter 2002): 1-6. Winter 2002. Web. 2 May 2012.
Housing in inner city areas was poor quality and in a 1991 census it was found that over 1 million homes in the inner cities still lacked the basic amenities of bathrooms, WC’s and hot water. The occupants have low incomes and are often elderly, young
(Spader, 2016) If the neighborhood you live in looks run down, then some people will treat it as just that. In recent years the federal Neighborhood Stabilization Program has funded local policy makers to refurbish or even demolish vacant homes. In doing so, their goal was to prevent the crime in that area from leaking over into the near-by communities. Over the span of three rounds of funding, the NSP has financed over 7 billion dollars in order to revitalize communites in America.