Takes hours to search this stuff out...am tired have been at all morning. This is a continuation of previous post Loft 1. Remember: The purpose of the $2,000,000 we chipped in to this development was to provide affordable, workforce housing. It was so that firefighters, hospital workers, teachers, sanitation workers, etc. could afford to live downtown. That was the goal.
The reality is not anywhere near the goal. No guidelines were in place, no strings were attached to the money we gave. So we subsidized investors and flippers who cashed in (or they are collecting rent). It is highly unusual for a condo not to have residency requirements. Most condos I have lived in have a one or two year waiting period before you can lease out a unit. Since this Loft 1's goal was residents, not transients, they should have at least had a one year if not two year waiting period. That discourages transients. However, it would seem since a lot these people are not living there, many must have renters in them (and the eviction document I found, noted in the last post, proves that).
Here is some background on the people who actually bought the affordable units (see both posts).
Tamara bought an apartment 1/04/06 for $202,000 however she lived on Collins Avenue. She sold loft property 2/20/07 for $248,000.
Ricardo A. paid $205,000 1/04/06. He owns 3 properties and takes his Homestead exemption in Kendall. Paid $666,000 total for all three properties.
Carlos C. paid $158,000 1/04/06. Seems to own a lot of properties, does not take a homestead exemption at the loft.
Arminda bought a unit 1/04/06 for $185,00 and took out an interest only mortgage. Owns three properties recently bought. Gives one as a legal address on City Clerk documents - not the Loft address. Her total purchases were $838,000. In 2003 there were foreclosures for a person with this name. Do not know if it is the same person.
Many of these people seem to not indicate on their mortgages that this is a second home when it obviously is.
6 comments:
It would be interesting to go back to the video file of the county commission meeting where the public money was committed to this project, and see if there was any discussion about the project being available to flippers and speculators.
My guess is that the building industry lobbyists, or Perez', would have objected to any conditions on the money-- calling them unnecessary impediments to providing people in need with housing. Either that, or a dis-incentive to builders who don't want to be subject to "extraordinary risk"-- like the provisions for MANDATORY affordable units that the builders objected to.
The Miami Herald should do the back-story fact checking... thanks for the hard work.
I went to the Dade County website and did a legislative search for "Loft." Seven commission items came up. Ironically the only one of the seven with the title "restricitve covenant" was about some other project entirely. Out of the other six, there are minutes from the commission. One talks about income caps and several commissioners' concerns that units could be resold at a profit. Sorry, my head was exploding from reading the small print so I don't have more details and wasn't able to follow exactly, but it looks like interesting reading...
anon
isn't it funny how both you and I get the same reaction: Exploding heads! That is what happens when I read or watch county stuff.
send the link so we all can read it.
If you elect criminals you get robbed
Mensa: If you have district voting as we do in the county: then how the hell do you get good people elected? You are just stating the obvious, how do we fix it....
I attended the County commission hearing on this matter when Jorge Perez expressed that "affordable housing is housing that the buyer can afford". It resonates that this is the wrong comment for those engaged in supporting afforable housing from the ground up. It would be helpful to have a copy of his appearance before the full County commision and his representations. What was discussed had to do with the fact that valuable HOME Dollars that subsidize affordable housing had been misspent and the affordable housing trust belonging to the City of Miami was being utilized to barter away the assets of the very low to moderate income individuals to developers. This was being done under the new branding of workforce housing and not in compliance with US HUD guidelines. The real deal is that Jorge Perez went to the County only for one purpose. That purpose was to get the County to repay the City of Miami for the HOME Dollars he misused and replinish the affordable housing Dollars that were raided in the process, after they went to a sold out group of applicants who were with the inner loop of City and County insiders. Let's find out exactly how many units Jorge Perez produced that have not been flipped into another income level that were suppose to be dedicated to Section 8 and those very low to moderate income individuals on waiting lists. The answer will be hard to determine for Mr. Perez and the related band of conspirators, since over 30,000 applications for Section 8 housing were recently destroyed by MDHA. Is that because other parties could be "bumped to the front of the line"? US HUD should be requesting a lot of data from his camp. It appears that Related is related to the housing crisis in Miami-Dade and the City of Miami.
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