Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

looks good with well painted and landscaped exteriors, children playing outdoors and a renewed liveliness.

In tracing and analyzing the evolution of the Delmann Heights Area certain facts became obvious. It has never possessed those qualities that are inherit and indicative of a cohesive community. Initially, circumstances did not warrant any community or neighborhood considerations. Evidence indicated that the primary, and perhaps, the only consideration for the development of Delmann Heights was to quickly produce a housing resource to meet a critical need.

Population shifts and changes produce a new or expanded need for goods and services. For example, a significant increase in the percentage of female heads of households usually increases the need for child care services. Additionally, if a neighborhood changes from a predominance of one ethnic group to another it also produces the need for goods and services which are reflective of their ethnic subcultures. Unresponsiveness to meeting these demands for specific types of goods and services often results in community apathy. Apathy can best be described as being frustrated by not getting the necessary assistance which could make life easier to cope with on a day-to-day basis; a feeling of alienation and isolation, and a constant struggle to maintain a concept of "self worth". In the past few years some fragmentary programs were implemented aimed at community restoration. In each instance, these efforts have produced minimal positive results.

This being the situation, how do intelligent planners justify putting more money and valuable energy into a community that has already had a significant amount of attention, both through planning efforts and public monies? Quite simply, the public planning efforts have been inappropriate at best, and the monies have been spent on programs that were detrimental to the well-being of the community. This statement does not deny that competent and wellmeaning people have not preceded our involvement, but rather that their efforts were the result of blindly accepting inappropriate conceptual notions about the treatment of urban problems from other communities without adequately evaluating the impact of the usage of these programs in their own community.

The full intent of this study is to develop a schematic framework under which public action can be positively utilized to make a dysfunctional community a reasonable place to live. In short, we are committed to bringing Delmann Heights and California Gardens to the point that there is no question in any resident's mind that this is his home and that he is basically satisfied with it.

AUCTION

OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
SUNDAY, JULY 27th 1975

[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][ocr errors]

ONE OF THE GREATEST REAL ESTATE OFFERINGS EVER MADE TO THE PUBLIC!!

[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors]

8. A background of the Delman Heights area is provided to some extent in my previous affidavit of July 18, 1975 and more completely on pages 5 and 6 of the Delmann Heights Study (filed herewith as Exhibit A).

9. As indicated in Exhibit A, there have been some unsuccessful fragmentary programs implemented in the past four years including rehabilitation of some HUD and Veterans Administration ("VA") foreclosed properties and subse

quent resale, aimed at the restoration of the community. In fact, many of the subject houses, together with many of the VA-foreclosed properties have gone through the cycle of sale, subsequent abandonment foreclosure and re-acquisition by HUD or VA under their mortgage insurance programs, rehabilitation and resale two, three and even four times.

10. As the figures in Exhibit A indicate the rates of abandonments and foreclosures rapidly accelerated between May 1971 and May 1974 in spite of the fragmentary efforts mentioned above. The reasons for the failure of these efforts and for the continuance of the abandonment, foreclosure, rehabilitation, resale cycle are primarily the following:

(a). The failure by HUD and VA to consider and implement a comprehensive revitalization plan which deals with the variety of factors such as those explored in the Delmann Heights Study (see Exhibit "A"). A comprehensive plan of development is necessary to assure prospective buyers that their investment will be safeguarded by an overall improvement in the neighborhood. Logically, no person' will be willing to invest several hundred dollars as down payment in a house if the adjacent houses (s) is or is likely to remain vacant and boarded up. In connection with Delmann Heights this not only would require a comprehensive plan to develop the subject 147 homes but also a coordinated plan to develop the 133 homes currently owned by the VA which are also boarded up. Additionally, a plan of development would have a greater possibility of success if it also dealt with the kinds of physical and social considerations, such as transportation and street patterns, recreational facilities, and safety, which are dealt with in the Delmann Heights Study. A community with approximately a 50% vacancy rate which has experienced repeated, unsuccessful fragmentary improvement attempts cannot be reasonably expected to turn around with a program which does not address itself to the total picture including but not limited to the condition of the physical structures.

(b). The inadequate "cosmetic" rehabilitation work performed on houses and the resulting deterioration which is noticeable within several months to a year have also been responsible for the failure of past development efforts. Unfortunately, I have all too often witnessed the spectacle of newly "rehabilitated" homes deteriorated within a short time as a result of cosmetic, inadequate and shoddy rehabilitation work. An example of such work is the inadequate preparation of exterior and interior surfaces for painting and the use of inappropriate or cheap paints with the resulting bubbling and blistering of the painted surfaces. Another example is the use of less expensive interior wood mouldings in exterior surfaces and the resulting deterioration of the moulding. The result of such practices is to present the buyer within several months with the alternative of investing several hundred or thousand dollars to rectify the improper work or of abandoning the property. Since the buyers of homes in the Delmann Heights area are invariably lower income families (homes sell for about $9,000 to $10,000 in a properly rehabilitated condition) who are on tight budgets, the result is likely to be the abandonment and subsequent boarding up of the house with the concomittant detrimental effects on the surrounding homes. I have personally seen examples of cosmetic rehabilitation of the type I have described in some of the thirty-two homes rehabilitated by Defendants Oma S. Brown, Fred Sykes and Ronald G. Mogen and in homes previously rehabilitated by HUD for subsequent resale.

(c). The inadequate screening and counseling of prospective buyers condoned or tolerated by HUD and VA have been instrumental in the deterioration of Delmann Heights. The purpose of counseling is to insure that a buyer fully realizes the present and future costs of home ownership. Future costs include maintenance and increasing property taxes resulting from the improvement of the subject house and of the neighborhood. In contrast, proper screening and credit checks are intended to assure that the buyer can adequately afford such costs. Unfortunately, I have seen examples of buyers whose credit ratings had ben falsified and others who bought and abandoned several houses in series, each time managing to qualify for HUD or VA mortgage insurance as a result of falsified credit or changes in identity and as a result of inadequate credit screening procedures. Unfortunately, the reality of a neighborhood is that if buyers are not adequately screened for credit worthiness and they subsequently abandon their property or are foreclosed upon, the neighborhood and the remaining residents bear the consequences of decreased amenities, property values and increased vandalism.

Consequently, it is clear that all of the elements which I have outlined (comprehensive, coordinated planning, adequate rehabilitation, and adequate buyer screening and counseling) are critical to a development plan which stands any chance of success in Delmann Heights. Tragically, the sales by HDU to JLJ is the complete antithesis of a program containing these elements and in my opinion that sale and the simultaneous resale to Brown, Sykes and Mogen will result in another cycle of cosmetic rehabilitation, sale, abandonment/foreclosure. Such a development portends the distinct danger of irrevocably condemning Delmann Heights to a major social failure and to the demolition of all the remaining homes as the tragic conclusion of government apathy and private profit. I sincerely believe that the next development of the subject 147 houses and the 133 VA homes is the final opportunity to turn the neighborhood around. This, however, will require a comprehensive, cordinated plan of all of the units (HUD and VA). The CDC is committed to the revitalization of Delmann Heights and the surrounding area, but I believe we have reached the point of no return. I am afraid that our community has one last chance to turn around and become an on-going community. I am, however, confident that with a well conceived, coordinated plan and careful and conscientious implementation we have a chance to succeed. All I want is a decent chance. We have had enough abandonments; HUD must not be allowed to abandon its responsibilities to the remaining community of insuring to the greatest feasible extent. a successful development of the properties under its control.

11. I frequently drive through the Delmann Heights area on a daily basis, since CDC is intimately involved in attempting to improve the neighborhood. Within the last few days I have seen several of the subject 147 homes posted with real estate broker signs indicating that the houses have been sold since July 27, 1975. In particular I have talked to a man who bought one of the subject 147 homes after the public auction on July 27, 1975. From my conversations with this man I believe that he has very little awareness of the costs he should anticipate as a homeowner and in fact he has little if any idea of the pendency of this action or of its significance. From my experience with rehabilitating and selling homes in the area and from my conversations with this purchaser, I am convinced that he cannot afford the payments on the house he was sold. Additionally, I have been in his partly rehabilitated house, and I have seen very shoddy and inadequate rehabilitation work of the type I have described and which will deteriorate in a very short time. All together I would say there is a strong likelihood that the house which I am referring to will go through the abandonment cycle in the near future with the resultant loss of the purchasers equity and the detriment to the surrounding neighbors.

Senator CRANSTON. Thank you very much. We now stand adjourned. Thank you.

[Whereupon at 12:15 p.m. the hearing was adjourned.]

CB 47

« AnteriorContinuar »