{"id":25839,"date":"2012-01-25T07:00:59","date_gmt":"2012-01-25T13:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=25839"},"modified":"2012-01-25T07:24:47","modified_gmt":"2012-01-25T13:24:47","slug":"ten-miles-of-money-pit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=25839","title":{"rendered":"Ten Miles Of Money Pit"},"content":{"rendered":"

Joe Doakes of Como Park covers some familiar territory:<\/p>\n

The Met Council announced it wants to spend $32 million to build light rail<\/a> and low income housing along transit lines, because they believe the population is changing to more seniors, minorities and smaller households so these projects are not only necessary, but wise.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s precisely the wrong approach. Instead, they should put smaller busses on the routes and vary the number by ridership (more during rush hour, fewer mid-day). They should work with cities to strip down housing codes so foreclosed properties can be resold cheaply as starter homes.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But the infallible alliance of government and its non-profit hangers-on has decided that’s what it needs; “low income housing” and hideously expensive rail transit!<\/p>\n

Doaks touches on something that hit a little close to home:<\/p>\n

Example: in 2007, Twin Cities Habitat for Humanity and the Greater Frogtown Community Development Corporation built Dale Street Townhouses, a 16-unit row house fronting on Dale Street near Thomas Avenue, five blocks North of the light rail station to be built on University Avenue. It\u2019s supposedly \u201caffordable housing\u201d but a neighbor told me yesterday there are unsold units because the asking price per apartment is well over $100,000. And that\u2019s the subsidized price for low-income applicants who qualify, that\u2019s not the cost of building the unit. For the same money, they could have bought twice as many foreclosed homes, slapped a coat of paint on them and resold the houses to struggling families who then could have built their own sweat equity.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I worked on those houses, when I did “Habitat” for a local company, back in 2008. \u00a0The townhouses – basically stacked-up rowhouses – cost waaaay <\/em>more than $100,000 to build, even with all the freebie labor. \u00a0And this was right after St. Paul passed its idiotic vacant building ordinance<\/a>, which on the one hand ensured a glut of vacant buildings ensuring all of our houses’ values would plummet without cease, and on the other hand made it virtually impossible to put most of those homes on the market without an absurd amount of expensive repairs.<\/p>\n

And I asked the Habitat guy – a supremely earnest young guy – what sense it made to be spending this kind of money on a building like this in a city clogged with vacant buildings.<\/p>\n

He just shrugged. \u00a0It was above his pay grade.<\/p>\n

The Met Council\u2019s plan is precisely the same plan they\u2019ve always had \u2013 to create a densely populated urban center to mimic New York City, whether the population wants it or not. Theirs should be the first budget slashed when the Legislature reconvenes.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s got my vote.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Joe Doakes of Como Park covers some familiar territory: The Met Council announced it wants to spend $32 million to build light rail and low income housing along transit lines, because they believe the population is changing to more seniors, minorities and smaller households so these projects are not only necessary, but wise. That\u2019s precisely […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25839","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-st-paul"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25839"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25839\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25842,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25839\/revisions\/25842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}