During the 2008 Mayors State of the City Address held on Feburary 27th, a very common theme unfolded...housing! The City of Syracuse has had a number of major accomplishments over the last year and is continuing to make strides to imrpove local housing, here are some hightlights...
Investing in Neighborhoods and Protecting Housing Stock Last year we set out an aggressive agenda to invest in our neighborhoods and protect our housing stock. We did that while holding the line on taxes. We’ve created a rental registry to monitor our housing stock. Today, a strengthened code inspection staff is getting inside to inspect for the first time ever 20 to 30 small rental properties each working day. We supported efforts at the South Side Innovation Center and today there more small businesses up and running thanks to loans we provided and the advice and counsel they are receiving from Syracuse University. We appointed an urban designer to work with developers and neighborhood planners. We created the position of Public Arts Coordinator to steer the work of the newly appointed Arts Council. We began new dedicated parks patrols and continued our successful Crime Reduction Team efforts.
City staff held 56 meetings with developers in 2007 to cut the time and cost for permitting a project. At least once a week city departments and other representatives meet to help projects as small as a restaurant and as large as a $100 million expansion of Upstate’s Children’s Hospital in a process we developed in concert with the Chamber of Commerce. There is a new spirit of collaboration, momentum and cautious optimism in Syracuse and our region. But any discussion of the City must start with a thorough review of the bottom line.
No Property Tax Increase
…Our success in marshalling and saving these funds over the last several years is an essential element of our strategy to address budget needs in the immediate future without raising property taxes. As in past years, the City has prepared a multi-year financial plan which was filed with and reviewed by the New York State Comptroller and the Governor’s Budget Office. This plan includes calculations showing that the City’s budget gap is approximately $23 million. Simply stated, this structural deficit is the difference between the money that the City takes in and the expenses it must pay out over a one year period. This deficit will have to be addressed as the City enacts its budget for the next fiscal year that begins on July 1st and for subsequent years. Normally, such a large imbalance would be a cause for an immediate alarm. However, the City is indeed fortunate to have a significant fund balance to address this gap next year. Therefore, when I unveil the details of my proposed budget in March, for the second year in a row, I will submit a budget to the Common Council that does not require a property tax increase.
Economic Development
The economic development momentum that began last year from University Hill through downtown to the Lakefront will accelerate this year. In the coming weeks, steel skeletons will rise for the new Center of Excellence in Environmental Systems and Energy, and for the expansion of Carousel Center.
Upstate Medical has begun a $4 million transformation of the long-vacant Four Winds site into a day-care center along South Salina Street. Design and construction will begin this year on the new building to house the JP Morgan Chase collaboration with Syracuse University that will bring 500 new jobs to University Hill. An experienced development team is ready to move forward with the 438 North Franklin project thanks to a City by City grant we secured. This $12 million project will include 36 residential units and 12,000 square feet of retail space. The list goes on.
Thanks to support from Governor Spitzer and the Legislature’s RestoreNY program, this year renovation will begin on four buildings in and around the 300 block of South Salina Street. This collaboration with 40 Below and the MDA will add 77 units of housing and add ground floor retail space. Also, 7 additional buildings will be renovated.
Work is already underway on the Masonic Temple on Montgomery Street to create new affordable artist housing. And here at the Hotel Syracuse, the developer is constructing 75 new apartments right now. King and King Architects will relocate downtown, providing 75 jobs. And finally, in news we should all celebrate, developer Joe Hucko will break ground soon on the first new private sector building built in downtown Syracuse since 1992.
Now, we need to adjust public policy and make strategic expenditures to support the remarkable amount of private investment we’re seeing across Syracuse. Last year I asked developer Doug Sutherland to head up a task force looking into a number of aspects of downtown development. One result is a comprehensive survey of our parking assets and recommendations on how to manage the 18,000 public and private spaces downtown. To accommodate needs of the growing number of downtown residents, I will ask the Council to convene a workgroup to consider the 30 plus recommendations in the parking report just delivered to us. First, I will ask the council to modify the City ordinance regulating nighttime garage operations. Too many downtown garages are closed at night because it’s too expensive for them to provide full time staff. With new technology there are ways to provide security without mandating that onsite personnel. Second we must implement new overnight on-street parking for residents. Other recommendations we will move on right away include Offering cheaper short-term parking areas in the ground floor of garages. Increasing the number of on-street parking spaces by modifying loading zones, reconfiguring bus stops and evaluating spaces set aside for government use. Continuing our discussions with the county about constructing a new garage on the former PSB jail site to meet the demand in the OnCenter area. Installing pay by credit card options in our pay station equipment this year. Calling Downtown Syracuse Home To welcome visitors and workers who call downtown home, we need to improve the walking environment. To help do that, the Sutherland team will take on two new tasks. Richard Hawks, urban designer from ESF has agreed to chair one group looking to recommend consistent architectural design guidelines for downtown development. At the same time David Mankiewicz, Executive Director of the Downtown Committee, will lead another group looking into security and quality of life issues. Also working with us has been a group of local developers who joined with me and the Downtown Committee recently to explore a new future for Warren Street, once the financial heart of the city. At my direction, SIDA recently acquired three key parcels we intend to package and open up to new ideas for development. As you’ve seen tonight, other older landmarks downtown are finding new life as developers transform them from office to residential use, and we need to apply that same formula to Warren Street. 6
Working with our partners, we secured additional state funding for the Connective Corridor as part of this year’s budget. Our goal is to encourage development linking the Oncenter complex to other parts of downtown such as Armory Square. The Chancellor’s vision for the Connective Corridor has been to create a signature strip of cultural development that will make our public spaces come alive, just as the skating rink has done for Clinton Square. To do that, the Corridor will make investments in key locations to support historic landmarks, cultural institutions and private development.
Tonight I am pleased to announce in concert with the Chancellor that $2 million of the Corridor funding will be used this year to construct Symphony Square adjacent to the Hotel Syracuse. The project will transform Onondaga Street and the sidewalks between the sections of the Hotel into an active urban plaza programmed with activities for this end of downtown. In addition, the University plans to bring the Corridor alive with a series of video art installations at five locations between the Hill and downtown.
Design work will continue this year for strips of the Corridor in the East Genesee Street area, and we are proposing to merchants an extension of these streetscape improvements in side streets as well as a new art installation at Forman Park. Everywhere I go, citizens intrinsically appreciate the many ways the city and university are coming together to engage the university in different aspects of city life. For all those efforts Chancellor, we thank you for your leadership.
Another important aspect of our development activity is to free up valuable new space for large employers to expand and add good paying jobs. We are now working with state officials to turn two long struggling complexes into spectacular development opportunities. Kennedy Square and Townsend and Harrison towers were part of a well-intentioned era of high-rise affordable housing. But these concepts failed and left residents in half-empty and poorly maintained housing. Thanks to the experienced staff at the Syracuse Housing Authority, the residents of Kennedy Square are currently being relocated to safer housing. A similar project is underway that transformed the former Cherry Hill high rise into the new Maple Heights affordable project. In addition, incorporation of Harrison/Townsend into a wider footprint for Upstate Medical will provide the room for our region’s largest employer to expand its campus across Route 81 into downtown.
David Smith, president of Upstate has been aggressively pursuing an agenda to increase enrollment 30 percent. Expanding research, adding jobs and acquiring and investing in properties such as the former Four Winds site, under David’s Leadership, Upstate is committed to the growth of this city.
Whether it’s new Housing on the West Side, or renovating older landmarks along Salina Street, Governor Spitzer has repeatedly stepped up to assist Syracuse. It’s now time for us to return the favor. I am urging everyone here to support the Governor’s $1 billion Upstate Revitalization Fund which is before the State Legislature. We have a governor who firmly believes that the revitalization of Upstate begins with the revitalization of our cities. I’m asking you to call or write your legislator and advocate for the Upstate fund.
Syracuse Neighborhoods Get Jump Start
The same type of momentum continues in our neighborhoods where this year we will take bold steps to accelerate the construction of new and rehabilitated housing. All across Syracuse we are about to launch a housing initiative as ambitious as any the city has ever witnessed.
We kicked it off recently with the announcement of a partnership with St. Joseph’s Hospital and Housing Visions for 40 units of new rental housing. This first phase will transform a dilapidated two block section of Townsend Street, thanks to $500,000 in city funds to leverage other federal and state funds. The next phase will focus attention on homeownership opportunities on Prospect Hill. This is only the start.
In a similar partnership tonight I’m pleased to announce the next extension of improvements in the Gateway Corridor along South Salina Street. This past year we finished improvements around the Community Health Center while community leaders continue to promote the region’s economic potential. This year we propose to concentrate on improving housing around Beard school.
In concert with the Gateway Group and Home Headquarters, we will use up to $500,000 in funds from the sale of the Trolley lot to build and rehab up to 10 homes around the school. I want to acknowledge the efforts of Councilors Van Robinson, Tom Seals and Bea Gonzalez who have been advocates for the Gateway projects. This past year we raised eyebrows with a program to acquire tax delinquent vacant homes and transfer them to our non-profit housing partners for $1. Home Headquarters has purchased 24 vacant houses and their goal is to rehab them and sell them to new home owners.
This year we will expand the one dollar program to unleash investment from private developers. While we are making progress in controlling vacant properties, I am authorizing changes in city policy through which we’ll aggressively seize tax delinquent vacant homes while there is still time for developers to restore them to productive housing.
Over the last few months we have begun to seize some 29 tax delinquent vacant structures, concentrating on the larger tough-to-develop 2, 3 and 4 family structures. I will propose to the Council that we will issue an RFP inviting private investors with good track records to rehab these structures either for home ownership or as rental units. We’ll make the homes available for $1 dollar and provide gap financing where needed. This will leverage another $5 million in private financing from Community Preservation Corporation.
I want to thank Councilor Kathleen Joy who has helped us work with CPC, investors and housing agencies to develop this innovative new approach. There are more plans for 2008 around the city. Under the umbrella of the Near Westside Initiative, Home Headquarters this year will begin rehab and construction on many of the 60 properties in the horseshoe shaped area around Blodgett School. With SNI and RestoreNY funds, construction will get underway this spring.
To complement work in the neighborhood, the Initiative also will transform the former Lincoln Warehouse on Fayette Street into several small arts related businesses and eight to 10 artist live-work units. With funds secured by the city and Syracuse University In another effort the city will support the hard work of the Eastwood Neighborhood Association. Its leaders have worked hard to promote home ownership and quality rental housing opportunities.
I will ask the Council to dedicate $100,000 in funds to launch a pilot program with the ENA. This will create a revolving fund providing 80 low interest loans for investors to upgrade rental properties in a voluntary program ENA has labeled its Five-Star Housing Program. This spring, work will begin on 134 existing and new houses in the Midland-Lincoln Bellevue area funded with $3 million from the Lake Cleanup settlement with the County. I’m also pleased to announce tonight that as part of a federal sentencing agreement, the city will take ownership of the former A-Shack Mini-mart on Midland. This eyesore will be demolished to provide a 2-acre site for potential new homes in the area. Pending the review process, two other neighborhood plans in the Skunk City and Sacred Heart areas are ready to move forward. Also designed by residents, these plans include mini-grant, low interest improvement loans and construction of new homes on vacant lots for some 310 properties in the two areas.
In the Strathmore area this year almost 22 homes will undergo exterior improvements to improve the curb appeal of Hubbell Avenue, one of the neighborhood’s gateway entrances. I want to thank Councilor Bill Ryan for his advocacy to secure the SNI funds for block beautification and strategic demolitions, and Councilor Ryan McMahon who has worked with the Greater Strathmore Neighborhood Association to develop the overall plan. To honor our architectural past as we embark on all this activity, we have commissioned a housing style guide with the AIA. This work will help developers incorporate popular Syracuse historical patterns for the housing we will build and renovate in the years ahead.
And our downtown neighborhood is booming with 300 units already completed and 400 more in development. This combined with the efforts underway in our other neighborhoods, is significant.
I would encourage you all to join me in acknowledging the work and dedication of all the housing partners poised to do so much across the city this year. I think you’ll agree we’ve been creative in finding new ways to construct new homes and rehabilitate older ones, often with public subsidy. Those public dollars are limited, so we need to find new ways to do more. We need a bold proposition that convinces new investors to take on properties long considered too far gone. We need to send a strong message to new owners who will consider moving into once-neglected neighborhoods.
Tonight I propose that Syracuse enact an aggressive residential tax program to further jump start investment. I will propose to the Council legislation that provides a seven-year 100 percent exemption on city and school taxes for owners who renovate a vacant residential property, or who build a new home on a vacant lot in Syracuse. I believe this is a timely and wise investment. Federal, State and Local dollars are more challenged then ever. Therefore, this is a wise public investment because demolishing vacant homes costs an average of $25,000 each. It costs $1 million to demolish just 40 homes. In the coming weeks I’ll take this proposal to the Council and State Legislature for discussion. I will advocate for swift passage so we can use this tool this year. This incentive will bring more vacant homes back to life. Investors and buyers will take notice. It will make the homes near Beard School more attractive to buyers. It will accelerate the West Side Initiative and our efforts to bring new home buyers to Prospect Hill on the North Side and across this City.
It’s a bold offer to be sure and I need your help to accomplish this aggressive task to encourage new investment, to entice new owners, to continue to bring back neighborhoods. Healthy neighborhoods revolve around healthy schools, and we have been equally aggressive in what we’re doing to invest in our schools and our children. I am pleased to report to you on the significant progress made by the City’s Joint Schools Construction Board. In recent months, the JSCB has met several major milestones for Phase I of its program. These include the approval of the overall financing plan by the State Comptroller, the hiring of a private sector project manager and the selection of architects for each of the seven Phase I schools. The most significant news is that because of the unique State aid provisions for this program and decisions made by the JSCB Board, $180 million will soon be on hand for these renovations without an increase in local property taxes. Construction is scheduled to begin on the first building, the Institute of Technology at Central High School, this summer. Tonight I wish to acknowledge the hours of work dedicated to the effort by the members of the Joint School Board and its staff. A special thank you to Councilor Stephanie Miner, Chair of the Education Committee.
Two years ago the city’s investment in the West Side Community School Strategy aimed to radically alter the way we support kids in and out of school. Today, West Side Strategy coordinators with teachers and staff have identified 1,000 students at risk in the six schools feeding Fowler High School. Family outreach workers are knocking on doors to engage the families. They are identifying obstacles and finding ways to deliver health care, better housing or a variety of services to help struggling families keep their children in school. The budget I will be forwarding to the Common Council next month will contain a third year of local funding for this program, bringing the City’s cumulative investment in the Westside Strategy to $1.0 million. I would like to acknowledge the special efforts of Councilor Pat Hogan in his tireless support and advocacy for this important initiative. Today the reality is the road to a quality career is paved with a good education. But higher education is often viewed as out of reach for families in many communities.
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