{"id":20918,"date":"2014-01-22T14:38:44","date_gmt":"2014-01-22T19:38:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/raleighpublicrecord.org\/?p=20918"},"modified":"2014-01-22T14:46:32","modified_gmt":"2014-01-22T19:46:32","slug":"raleigh-housing-authority-proposes-changes-to-capital-park","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/news\/city-council\/2014\/01\/22\/raleigh-housing-authority-proposes-changes-to-capital-park\/","title":{"rendered":"Raleigh Housing Authority Proposes Changes to Capitol Park"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A recent move by the Raleigh Housing Authority to eliminate 60 public housing units prompted questions this week, but officials say it&#8217;s a necessary step to comply with federal changes.<\/p>\n<p>Raleigh Housing Authority (RHA) Executive Director Steve Beam explained the changes during Tuesday\u2019s regular City Council meeting after Councilors questioned the elimination of 60 public housing units in the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cadcommunities.com\/capitolpark\/index.aspx\" target=\"_blank\">Capitol Park<\/a> development.<\/p>\n<p>Councilor Eugene Weeks said at a time when the city is talking about ending homelessness, \u201cyou\u2019re almost promoting people to be homeless.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Beam said the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is pushing housing authorities to remove units from their public housing inventory and transition them to the Section 8 program, which provides vouchers for market-rate units.<\/p>\n<p>HUD is trying to replace the public housing program with the <a href=\"http:\/\/portal.hud.gov\/hudportal\/HUD?src=\/RAD\" target=\"_blank\">Rental Assistance Demonstration<\/a> (RAD) program. Beam said the RAD program won&#8217;t work for Raleigh because once a development is turned into Section 8, HUD locks in the funding that the housing authority is already receiving, which might leave RHA in financial straits.<\/p>\n<p>Instead, he proposes to transition 60 Capitol Park units from public housing into affordable market rate housing. Such housing accepts tenants based on incomes that are 80 percent of the area median income (AMI) established by HUD.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"module align-center full type-aside\"><strong>AMI<\/strong><br \/>\nCurrently, AMI for a family of four is $75,300. RHA must show that 75 percent of the units have rents that are affordable for families who are making less than 80 percent AMI or $60,800.<\/aside>\n<p>In RHA\u2019s case, the converted units would be owned by Capital Area Development, the nonprofit development arm of the RHA. RHA would maintain the units.<\/p>\n<p>Residents who live in the units will receive vouchers, which they can use to find other housing or to remain at Capitol Park. If they choose to stay, a tenant&#8217;s rent payment will remain the same as long as they use the voucher, which is based on income. <\/p>\n<aside class=\"module align-right half type-aside\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><strong>Current Capital Park Housing Types<br \/>\n<\/strong>Public Housing: 60 units<br \/>\n40 percent (24 units) of which are limited to extremely low-income residents.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Affordable Market Rate: 59 units<br \/>\n75 percent of the total units in Capital Park must have rents affordable for families making 80 percent AMI, currently $60,800.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Tax Credit: 90 units<br \/>\nThese are affordable at 60 percent AMI, or $45,180, but 36 units must be affordable to families at 35 percent AMI, or $26,460.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><strong>Proposed Capital Park Housing Types<br \/>\n<\/strong>Affordable Market Rate: 119<br \/>\n75 percent of the total units in Capital Park must have rents affordable for families making 80 percent AMI, currently $60,800.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Tax Credit: 90<br \/>\nThese are affordable at 60 percent AMI, or $45,180, but 36 units must be affordable to families at 35 percent AMI, or $26,460.<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p>&nbsp;<br \/>\nAfter the tenant leaves, the unit converts to affordable market rate.<\/p>\n<p>Beam must still get HUD approval for his proposal.<\/p>\n<p>Councilor Thomas Crowder said he was uncomfortable with HUD\u2019s push to privatize the program.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier this month two Republicans, U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa and U.S. Rep. George Holding of Raleigh, announced they wanted a federal investigation into RHA and Beam\u2019s time off.<\/p>\n<p>Crowder said that Councilors should ask their representatives to instead look into the changes at HUD.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019d rather have it under the authority of the housing authority than the private sector,\u201d Crowder said.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Questions of Oversight<\/strong><br \/>\nAfter Beam\u2019s salary and compensatory time was <a href=\"http:\/\/www.midtownraleighnews.com\/2013\/12\/27\/3487736\/housing-authoritys-pay-perks-raise.html\" target=\"_blank\">reported by local news outlets<\/a>, Councilors began questioning what kind of oversight the city has over the RHA.<\/p>\n<p>City Attorney Thomas McCormick said oversight is limited.<\/p>\n<p>By state statute, the RHA is its own separate entity chartered by the state. Once the mayor appoints the board members, the city\u2019s oversight of the RHA ends.<\/p>\n<p>In extraordinary situations, he said, the city could dissolve the board or the housing authority itself and, in essence, become the housing authority. To do that, the city would have to prove malfeasance by the board members or the RHA.<\/p>\n<p>During the public comment portion of the meeting, community advocate Octavia Rainey called on Mayor Nancy McFarlane to appoint more black residents to the board.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat board is too white,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>Currently, all but one of the seven board members are white. There is also only one woman on the board.<\/p>\n<p>On top of racial diversity, Rainey said the board lacks geographic diversity. There is no representation from southeast Raleigh.<\/p>\n<p>Rainey also said that the changes to Capitol Park would hurt black residents.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Street Names<\/strong><br \/>\nCouncilors asked planning staff to come back with a report on the street names that will be used for the Walnut Terrace project now under construction.<\/p>\n<p>Walnut Terrace will have 147 affordable market rate units and 145 public housing units.<\/p>\n<p>The new project, which is set to be completed this year, uses the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.newsobserver.com\/2014\/01\/17\/3542272\/raleigh-housing-authority-where.html\" target=\"_blank\">names of magicians<\/a> for the streets.<\/p>\n<p>Beam is also a professional magician and reportedly uses his compensatory time to attend magic conventions.<\/p>\n<p>Staff will bring a report to Council in two weeks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Raleigh Housing Authority Executive Director Steve Beam explains proposed changes to Capitol Park, which would decrease public housing units.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24029,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4,15],"tags":[1537,1463,1534],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20918"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24029"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20918"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20918\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}