I can see "workforce" housing being added, but who knows?
Developers’ big plans for Micron suburbs don’t include low-income housing. Will prosperity be shared?:
https://www.syracuse.com/news/2024/0...be-shared.html
"Where will all the hotel workers live?
That was Sally Santangelo’s thought after learning that developers have no plans for low-income housing in their ambitious scheme to transform Great Northern Mall into a new community.
The plan for the dead mall in Clay is to build the equivalent of a small village from the ground up: 1,700 apartments, medical facilities, retail stores and restaurants. The plans include seven new six-story hotels.
“All of those workers are going to need a place to live,’’ said Santangelo, executive director of CNY Fair Housing.
But the new community is not expected to be a place where hotel desk clerks and housekeepers – or anyone who makes much less than the median income of $65,000 a year – can afford the rent, according to the developers.
The companies developing the mall site – Hart Lyman Cos. and Conifer Realty – say they plan to attract a range of middle- and upper-income tenants. That includes medical personnel. Chip fab engineers. Construction workers.
The lowest rents would be affordable for people making the median local income, or a bit less, said Sam Leone, president of Conifer Realty.
That would exclude nearly half the county, including many of the service workers who will be needed when Micron Technology builds a massive chip fab complex four miles down Route 31 from the mall site.
The Great Northern Mall project is the largest of at least six big housing developments proposed in the towns of Clay and Cicero as developers anticipate Micron-fueled growth. Together the projects would deliver nearly 3,000 new homes. But not one includes any provision for low-income tenants at this point.
So far, the prosperity promised by Micron has not extended to people at the lower end of the income scale.
It remains to be seen whether government officials will press for the addition of low-income units in return for financial incentives. The Great Northern developers are likely to seek property tax breaks and other subsidies to help finance the massive project.
Onondaga County Executive Ryan McMahon, who has championed the Great Northern development, said he will push to include some low-income housing in the mix if the developers ask for special tax breaks as expected.
McMahon did not cite specifics – “I’m not going to negotiate in the newspaper,’’ he said. But he said he expects the developers to ask for greater-than-average property tax breaks, for which the county will demand affordable housing in return.
“I think if they’re looking for anything outside the standard (tax deal) … we’re going to want to see a project that is going to be a mixed-income project,’’ McMahon said.
Housing plans in Onondaga County are ramping up in response to the promise of Micron – the Great Northern proposal is the most ambitious in decades – and thus far the plans follow a familiar pattern: The suburbs near the Micron site get mostly market-rate or luxury housing, and most housing for low-income tenants gets built in the city of Syracuse.
Breaking out of that divide may require creative new approaches to planning and financing low-income housing, which is challenging to build.
Typically, developers seek federal tax credits and other significant subsidies to build housing for low-income residents, because the rents are too low to cover the financing costs.
Leone, of Conifer, and Guy Hart Jr., of Hart Lyman, said they do not intend to apply for tax credits for the Great Northern Mall project. Leone said they would consider doing a tax-credit project in the Clay area if they find a good site.
But the developers have indicated they are likely to look for other subsidies at the mall site. In addition to a local property tax break, they likely will seek financial help from the state and federal governments, Hart said.
That’s where officials have leverage.
Santangelo, the housing advocate, said any government assistance should require adding some lower-cost housing to the mix.
“If a project is receiving public subsidy — whether that’s through something like a PILOT agreement or infrastructure improvements, which are also a subsidy — then there should be some broader benefit in terms of affordable housing,’’ Santangelo said.
Affordable for whom?
That term, affordable, is a slippery one.
Asked whether the mall project would include affordable housing, Hart said some of the less expensive apartments would be within the reach of a theoretical couple – a bus driver and a part-time bartender, say – who make a combined $69,000 a year.
Other apartments will be more luxurious for someone – a senior engineer at a semiconductor company, he suggested – who makes $280,000. There’s room for a broad mix, Hart said.
“They all become friends, because they’re neighbors,’’ he said.
But the mall project will not include low-income housing, which is typically defined as affordable to families with 60% or less of the area’s median income. For a two-person household in Central New York, that’s an upper income limit of under $45,000 a year.
Hart’s imagined bus driver/bartender fit into a different category. The couple would need so-called “workforce housing,’’ usually defined by rents that are affordable to households earning between 80% and 120% of the area median income. That’s between roughly $60,000 and $90,000 for a two-person household.
That’s the income level targeted by Onondaga County’s new housing tax incentives approved in February. If developers promise to reserve 10% of a project’s apartments as workforce housing, they qualify for a 10-year discount on property taxes. They save 100% the first year, and 10% less each subsequent year.
To earn that subsidy, the rents on those units would be no higher than, for example, $1,574 for a two-bedroom apartment. A couple could qualify with an income of up to $89,640, according to the county industrial development agency.
Zoning rules in the city of Syracuse require developers to meet that standard for any new apartment building with 20 units or more – 10% of apartments at “workforce’' rent levels – whether the builder seeks a tax break or not.
For developers who go further, the city offers a generous standard PILOT that cuts the property tax 100% for 10 years before phasing out over the next four years. The landlord must set rents slightly lower than the workforce standard — $1,343 for a two-bedroom apartment, for example – and they must do that for 20% of the apartments.
Leone, of Conifer Realty, said the Great Northern project targets the housing needs stemming from Micron’s planned $100 billion chip fab complex. The housing will appeal to Micron engineers and the anticipated flood of construction workers, for example, plus employees from healthcare facilities planned on the site.
The rent levels are still being worked out, Leone said, but they will likely start at a level appropriate for “median or maybe just below the median income.’’ The median income for a single person in Onondaga County is $65,400. (Average Annual Wage for the Syracuse metro area is $63,630 according to Bureau of Labor Statistics, May 2023 info:
https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_45060.htm#00-0000 )
About half of the 50,000 jobs expected to arrive with Micron’s chip fabs are projected to pay $60,000 or less, according to a state-sponsored analysis.
Low-income housing is more affordable than workforce housing.
Moyer Carriage Lofts, for example, is a renovated factory on Syracuse’s North Side financed with millions of dollars in tax credits and other subsidies. It just opened 78 new apartments for low-income tenants. The rents range from $495 to $709 for a one-bedroom apartment (depending on income), or $709 to $933 for a two-bedroom. (In which much of the "affordable" housing is in line with, in terms of having ranges)
Another 50 apartments at Moyer are reserved for tenants with mental illnesses or victims of domestic violence.
With Micron coming, the Syracuse area needs to develop all kinds of housing. McMahon often refers to his “all of the above” housing strategy.
But the most acute shortage now is for quality low-income housing.
Households that earn less than $50,000 a year have “few good options’' for housing, according to a preliminary analysis by czb LLC, a consulting firm that is preparing a housing policy for Onondaga County. The policy is expected to be finished by May.
The need for low(er)-income housing extends far into the suburbs, McMahon said.
“You have people making 35-40 grand a year on Social Security, but live in a town, right? You have folks that (are) starting their career, or advancing their career, working at Amazon,’’ he said. “I think many people who work for the town of Clay probably qualify for this. I know a lot of my (county) workforce does.’’
Hotel and food-service workers often live in run-down apartments in Syracuse, said Ann Marie Taliercio, president of Unite Here Local 150, a union representing hotel workers at the Downtown Syracuse Marriott and food service workers at the Syracuse airport, among others.
Besides low-quality housing, they often struggle with transportation to day care and to their jobs, she said.
“Is housing an issue?” she said. “Absolutely.”
An ‘extraordinary disparity’
Although there is demand for affordable housing in the suburbs, most low-income developments target working-class neighborhoods of Syracuse. If that pattern continues, it could further concentrate poverty in the city.
Several hundred new low(er)-income apartments are planned or under construction in Syracuse.
In addition to the recently opened Moyer building, non-profit developer Housing Visions is building Creekside Landing on the South Side, with 52 units. The planned conversion of Maria Regina College on the North Side will add 181 affordable units for seniors. Following the demolition of the former Syracuse Developmental Center, a developer plans to start construction next year on up to 230 subsidized units near the Rosamond Gifford Zoo.
The new housing is much needed. At the same time, building all the new low-income apartments in Syracuse threatens to perpetuate the economic divide between the city and its suburbs.
Three out of four subsidized housing units in the county are in the city of Syracuse, urban planning expert Alan Mallach said during a recent forum on “livable communities” at Syracuse University. Average incomes in Syracuse are just over half the average in suburban towns, said Mallach a senior fellow at the Center for Community Progress.
The county has poor people, Mallach said, but “it does not have the concentrated poverty that Syracuse has, which is a problem of its own.’’
Overcoming the “extraordinary disparity” between city and suburbs is a critical challenge for the future, Mallach said.
Island Hollow, a low(er)-income housing complex in a remote neighborhood in Cicero, is one sign of the need for suburban affordable housing. It’s three miles from the nearest bus line in a semi-industrial area near a concrete plant and Cicero Swamp.
The development drew intense opposition in 2016, when it was first proposed. More than 300 residents signed an online petition against it.
But now there is a waiting list for the 194 apartments, said David Kimmel, president of Two Plus Four Management, the owner. Rents range from $865 for a two-bedroom duplex to $1,322 for a three-bedroom unit, depending on the tenant’s income.
Two Plus Four has developed affordable housing in several suburbs of Syracuse and across the state. The company has 2,800 rental units.
Affordable housing proposals nearly always stir up not-in-my-backyard opposition in areas dominated by single-family homes, Kimmel said. Usually the NIMBYs are just a vocal minority, he said, but their hostility can be intense.
“It’s just difficult all around,’’ Kimmel said. “If you mention affordable housing, it shuts the door.’’
Island Hollow was funded in part with low-income housing tax credits and other subsidies awarded by the state. For income-restricted properties, the subsidies are necessary to offset the low rents, according to most developers.
Conifer Realty, the housing half of the Great Northern team, is one of the leading developers of low-income housing in the Northeast. The company owns several rental properties it renovated in Syracuse, including the boyhood home of author F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Leone said Conifer intends to have a long-term presence in Central New York and will look for opportunities to develop low-income projects.
But the Great Northern Mall site is not a good fit for such a development, he said.
“We don’t see this as the site where the traditional low-income housing tax credit development would occur,’’ Leone said. “That’s not what’s been on our mind. We definitely see a need for that, but not necessarily at the mall site.’’
Conifer does not have any specific sites in mind for low-income housing, Leone said. When they do, they will work closely with local officials to enlist their support.
“We want to go where we’re wanted and needed,’’ Leone said. “If the public support isn’t there, you know, we tend to move to other areas.’’
I think the thing with the Great Northern site is that it is a good distance from where many of those working at the proposed hotels would most likely live. In turn, I think the discussion/article should have been more about workforce housing as a piece of the development/more of a mixed income development versus just having it completely workforce housing.
This is also assuming that everyone that works at Micron or even a vast majority would live there, which makes the mixed income/workforce housing aspect even more of a topic for the development, in terms of filling up all of the housing units. Let alone the pay mentioned in the article.
lastly, there need to be more talk about public transportation, if the goal is to give those that need the opportunity the most access to the facility.
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