The Confluence Cast

By Tim FultonSociety & Culture News Places & Travel

The Confluence Cast episodes

August 12, 2022Columbus Memes & Inside Jokes
Columbus has a lot of character to it. From Comfest to COSI, there are a myriad of topics, issues, inside jokes, and even memes that every Columbusite should be aware of. 614 enthusiast Doug Powhida, the man behind the satirical twitter account Fake Dispatch, graces us this week with a high-level survey of what makes the city great, and sometimes not so great.
Shownotes
Fake Dispatch on Twitter
COSI
AM 820
CD 92.9
Columbus Ale Trail
Columbus Crew
Arnold Sports Festival
Comfest
South Campus Gateway
Columbus on Reddit
The Confluence Cast is sponsored this week by the Gateway Film Center. Gateway Film Center is a nonprofit cinema committed to supporting storytellers and amplifying the impact of their work in our community. Join them at the Film Center this season as they celebrate these artists with a retrospective of unique stories from their partners at A24 and new independent stories premiering this summer. To plan your next visit, visit gatewayfilmcenter.org.
Full transcript on page 2
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34 min
July 01, 2022Housing
As the Assistant Director of Housing Strategies for the City of Columbus, Erin Prosser wakes up every day thinking about housing in the city. In today’s episode, we discuss strategies for combatting NIMBYism, the importance of non-commercial partners when we think about housing, why housing should be thought of as infrastructure, and how we can right-size our systems in order to align them to our priorities.
As a bonus this week, we have an additional conversation with entrepreneur David Hunegnaw about one possible micro solution to density: Lease the Lawn.
Shownotes
Erin Prosser
MKSK
Campus Partners
3CDC
Community Properties of Ohio
LinkUS
Lease The Lawn
Loud Capital
The Confluence Cast is sponsored by The Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission featuring stories about local and regional partners that envision and embrace innovative directions in economic prosperity, transportation, sustainability, and an inclusive Central Ohio. MORPC’s transformative programming, innovative services, and public policy initiatives are designed to promote and support the vitality and growth of the region.
Full transcript on page 2
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1 hr 1 min
June 09, 2022Council President Shannon Hardin
As a growing city, we have growing city problems. No one knows that better than Columbus City Council President Shannon Hardin. With the influx of new residents and new jobs, President Hardin discusses transit as an equity issue, the importance of continuing conversations around race and policing, why we have to do big things now, and the big changes coming to how the city council will be elected, starting next year.
Shownotes
Council President Shannon Hardin
Columbus City Council
311 Call Center
The Confluence Cast is sponsored by The Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission featuring stories about local and regional partners that envision and embrace innovative directions in economic prosperity, transportation, sustainability, and an inclusive Central Ohio. MORPC’s transformative programming, innovative services, and public policy initiatives are designed to promote and support the vitality and growth of the region.
Full transcript on page 2
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51 min
May 02, 2022Department of Development
At a time when the city seems close to a boom in terms of economic development, it also faces challenges with that growth. This week, Columbus’s Director of Development Michael Stevens discusses the portfolio of the Department of Development, how the department works to improve the lives of Columbus residents, evaluating investments at a neighborhood level, and how tax abatements happen in the city.
Shownotes
Department of Development
Director of Development Michael Stevens
Steve Schoeny episode
Homeport episode
One Linden
Columbus Land Bank
One Columbus
The Confluence Cast is sponsored by The Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission featuring stories about local and regional partners that envision and embrace innovative directions in economic prosperity, transportation, sustainability, and an inclusive Central Ohio. MORPC’s transformative programming, innovative services, and public policy initiatives are designed to promote and support the vitality and growth of the region.
Full transcript on page 2
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33 min
April 05, 2022Alternative Transit
How should eScooters, ride-hailing apps, and car-share services be considered in the conversation about alternative transportation? Can we think of them as a public good when they are for-profit entities? This week, Columbus Underground reporter Brent Warren discusses the options for last-mile transit that exist in Columbus, how they came to be, and the motivations and incentives for the companies that get us from point A to point B.
Shownotes
Car2Go
Josh Lapp
Bird
Spin
Lime
CoGo
Free2Move
Trip Bikes
The Confluence Cast is sponsored this week by the Central Ohio Transit Authority. It’s time to shake up your commute and roll with COTA! Getting started is easy. Just go to your app store and search for “Transit.” Download the Transit app and set up your COTA account. With the Transit app, you can plan, track and pay for your COTA rides. Download Transit today!
Full transcript on page 2.
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30 min
March 28, 2022Multidisciplinary Artist Lisa Mclymont
Art and artists have the power to change perceptions. In this week’s episode, multidisciplinary artist, graphic designer, & social justice advocate Lisa Mclymont discusses her background, work, her path as an artist, how she chooses her work so that it remains aligned with her self-defined purpose, and her work on the Columbus Art Commission.
Additionally, the episode starts with a mini-episode, the first in a series of bite-sized conversations with the staffers at Columbus Underground about timely issues that may not warrant an entire show. Today, we’re talking about the bike lane discussions that are taking place in Clintonville and around the city with Columbus Underground owner Walker Evans.
Shownotes
Lisa Mclymont
Universe Tribe
Odes
Rebecca Ibel
Art for Life
CAPA
Adam Brouillette
Blockfort
The Rambling House
Columbus Art Commission
Riffe Gallery
Studio 35
This Confluence Cast episode is sponsored by Art Makes Columbus, Columbus Makes Art, featuring stories about our city’s incredible artists — stories full of inspiration, challenge, passion, and success. For videos, articles, an up-to-the-minute calendar of events, and an artist directory visit ColumbusMakesArt.com, the resource for all things arts and culture in the capital city.
Full transcript on page 2.
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50 min
March 17, 2022The Future of Transit
Columbus is the largest city in the country without any form of rail service. That might not be changing anytime soon but plans are coming together for an alternative by way of the LinkUS Columbus initiative: Bus Rapid Transit. In today’s episode, Josh Lapp of Transit Columbus talks about the plan, how to convince people that we need transit, and what Amtrak service in Columbus may look like.
Shownotes
Transit Columbus
LinkUS Columbus
Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission
Central Ohio Transit Authority
Corridor Study
Intel Plant
Amtrak Proposal
Josh in the Wall Street Journal
Scioto Mile
Full transcript on page 2.
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45 min
November 29, 2021Upper Arlington
Communities around Central Ohio are facing rapid change. That’s apparent in Upper Arlington where Steve Schoeny serves as City Manager. In this week’s episode, we discussed the role of a city manager, his time as Development Director for the City of Columbus, addressing diversity in communities, and the new development coming to UA.
Shownotes
Upper Arlington
Columbus Department of Development
Ohio Department of Development
Ice Miller
Columbus Land Bank
United Way of Central Ohio
LinkUs Initiative
Rapid 5 Project
The Confluence Cast is sponsored by The Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission featuring stories about local and regional partners that envision and embrace innovative directions in economic prosperity, transportation, sustainability and an inclusive Central Ohio. MORPC’s transformative programming, innovative services and public policy initiatives are designed to promote and support the vitality and growth in the region.
Full Transcript
Tim Fulton 00:10
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the confluence cast presented by Columbus underground. We are a weekly Columbus centric podcast focusing on the civics, lifestyle, entertainment, and people of our city. I’m your host Tim Fulton. This week I spoke with Upper Arlington city manager Steve shoni. We discussed the role of a city manager what makes Arlington unique, his time as development director for the city of Columbus, making investments for long term benefit addressing diversity in communities and the new developments coming to UA. You can get more information on what we discussed today in the show notes for this episode at the confluence cast comm also the confluence cast is on Patreon. Find out how to support this podcast on our website, the confluence cast comm or at patreon.com/confluence. The confluence cast is sponsored this week by the Mid Ohio Regional Planning Commission, or more BCy. featuring stories about local and regional partners that envision and embrace innovative directions in economic prosperity, transportation, sustainability, and an inclusive Central Ohio. More PCs transformative programming, innovative services and public policy initiatives are designed to promote and support the vitality and growth in the region. For more information, please visit more pcy.org Enjoy the interview. Sitting down here virtually with the city manager of Burlington Steve shoni. Steve, how are you, sir?
Steve Schoeny 01:48
I’m doing well. How are you?
Tim Fulton 01:49
I’m doing well. Thank you for asking. I wanted to first of all, just get your bio, what your background is where you came from? And how long you’ve been with Arlington?
Steve Schoeny 01:59
Yeah, sure. So I’ve been with Arlington for about two years, actually a little over two years now. So I started Deana September of 19. Before that I was spent 66 years as the development director for the city of Columbus. So there I had responsibility for code enforcement planning, housing. Economic Development, downtown development, basically, I used to say if Oh, and then we had social service programs, too. So basically, if you were doing something to invest in the city in some way, shape, or form, probably Department of Development had something to it. So I spent most of my career, most of my career before that with the Ohio Department of Development. started off doing international trade promotion, went from there to run in the states tax incentive programs. And then running off the state’s business attraction program did that for about 13 years. In between the two, I spent three years working for ice Miller, which is a law firm here in town doing working in their consulting practice. I’m not a lawyer, but doing I was doing consulting for businesses that were looking to get incentives or communities that were looking to improve their economic development programs. Okay, you know, really kind of came to the city manager role and a pretty roundabout way, a pretty non traditional way, for folks, but it’s been great. It’s been a fantastic two years, you know, setting aside this whole COVID thing, which was a little bit weird, but
Tim Fulton 03:34
I mean, most of the time you’ve been there, that’s what you’ve been looking
Steve Schoeny 03:37
after. Yeah, exactly. So it’s, it’s, you know, as everybody, as with everybody, the last two and a half years have felt more like five and a half to 25 and a half somewhere in that range. But it’s been good. We got a great community, a great team and all things considered. We have come through or coming through this storm and living, you know, learning to live with this, as well as any community around so it’s been great.
Tim Fulton 04:05
Yeah. And for those that don’t know, or aren’t familiar with it, and have been living under a male role structure for most of their lives. Can you talk about the role of a city manager and who you’re accountable to and what what it looks like?
Steve Schoeny 04:17
Yep. So basically, if you have a city manager structure, city council hires the mayor. City council hires that person to be the day to day manager of the city. So there is someone who carries the title of city council president and Mayor. That’s Brendan King. Who, as any appointed official should always do, I have to say is the most amazing. I’ve ever know. I really do. I have a fantastic Council. I have seven council members. They’re all elected at large. I actually have I’m wearing my voted today sticker. Today’s November 2, so I have four of my seven seats on council are on the ballot today. I have three incumbents running one open seat. And for folks who are who are running to fill a seat as a challenger, whatever term you want to use it, this is one of those days where, you know, you sit back and you’re watching. I’ve joked it feels a little bit like I’m on some kind of strange dating show. Watching, figuring out how other people are going to pick, you know, the people that are going to be really responsible for overseeing me in my role for the next four years. So
Tim Fulton 05:36
and is it they are running for particular seats? They’re not?
Steve Schoeny 05:40
No, no, they’re all large. So okay, everybody votes in up, Arlington today gets to click on four names, you know, I will say, I’m really fortunate, I’ve got seven people running who, you know, I think are all running for the right reasons. They’re dedicated his community, they’re not out trying to throw bombs over one thing or another. And really kind of believe in Upper Arlington is a place that should be open and welcoming, and a great place to live and work and raise a family and all those wonderful things. And so I really do feel very, very lucky to have a really good counsel currently. And then, you know, no matter how this turns out, I think I’m going to end up with a great counsel.
Tim Fulton 06:24
And so do you continue to serve at the pleasure of counsel just until it’s done? Or is it? You’re like a football coach, and it gets renewed every couple years?
Steve Schoeny 06:34
I don’t quite make football coach money. Okay, college coaches, but you know, it is yes, I have a contract, I’ve got a three year contract. So it’s good, because it gives some level of stability, that, you know, I can go and push issues, and try and drive the agenda forward. And, you know, it’s something that gives Council a little bit of pause, if they should decide that, you know, on this podcast, I said one wrong thing. And they decided they wanted to fire me because I said, you know, they didn’t like what I said about how the the election was going or something like that is something to give them a little bit of pause, and allow them to make a reasoned, force them to maybe make a more thoughtful decision than a passionate decision, which sometimes you find in elective office.
Tim Fulton 07:23
Right? I would imagine, would you say that you’re then the administrator of the city, rather than how empowered Do you feel to make policy decisions? Or at least make those recommendations? And then have them approved
Steve Schoeny 07:36
by county? Yeah, I mean, I, I, I love using kind of private sector analogies, and this guy, and city manager, form of government works really well, in saying, you know, I’m the CEO, and they’re more, they’re my board of directors. I mean, that’s really fundamentally how it works. And so, you know, there will be things where, you know, you look at something you say, look, ultimately, this is a judgment. This isn’t an administrative judgment about, you know, is it best to do something this way or that way? You know, this comes down to how much you value, x versus y. Well, that value judgment, that’s really, really the elected officials role. That’s what the people are electing them to do. It’s my job to figure out what are the best options? And if there’s a clear one, pretty much they give me the authority to run with it. If there’s something where it’s a borderline thing, and it’s something that matters, then typically, I’ll go to them, and then obviously, on anything with money, I have to go to them.
Tim Fulton 08:32
Right, because they manage that budget. Yeah. Yeah. Talk me through what you can use Columbus as a comparison, but I don’t think maybe it’s the best one. But talk me through what’s unique about Arlington versus the other suburbs of Central Ohio.
Steve Schoeny 08:48
Yeah, you know, Arlington. What’s unique about Arlington is it’s what you’ll hear sometimes referred to as an inner, inner ring suburb. But it’s a really big one. So you know, historically, geographically, we’re kind of similar to a marble cliff or Grandview or Bexley or Whitehall and that, you know, we’re We’re completely surrounded by Columbus, essentially. And we’re landlocked, but we’re 36,000 people, it’s a big footprint, you know, is centrally located. So that gives us the ability to do some things like have some pretty big development and host some pretty big development, but still be really close to downtown and really close to a lot of amenities and take, take clearly take full advantage of our proximity to the Ohio State University and take advantage of being between the two rivers and things like that. But, you know, if you’re asking kind of what makes us different, it’s the combination of size and central location that’s, that’s pretty unique in Franklin County. Yeah, really, honestly, in all of Ohio. When you look at the Cleveland the Cleveland Cuyahoga County communities, they all tend to be really small, it’s very balkanized up there, Hamilton County tends to be the big spaces tend to be a lot more township stuff. And you know, there are a couple smaller communities that are similar. But really, we’re pretty big for a community that’s situated the way we are.
Tim Fulton 10:17
Right? Can you talk about what issues you tend to have to address or deal with that might be unique to Arlington, maybe because of the size, maybe because of proximity to the city?
Steve Schoeny 10:30
Yeah. So you know, being right in the middle of everything, it, it creates a number of things in terms of being on transportation corridors, you know, having 33 runoff along one side, you know, looking at the development of the western lands at LSU, the innovation, they’re calling the Innovation Campus innovation district, you know, that’s going to have a huge impact on us. You know, those are things that fundamentally will change how our residents get to and from where they’re going, the development, of course, trails, getting right on our doorstep a huge impact on us. And so it does put us in a unique place. I think one of the things is other one of the other things is really unique and really good is that our residents, are residents of the broader community and are full participants in the broader community. So you’ll find our residents in the important boardrooms, whether those are our corporate boardrooms or not for profit boardrooms, around town, you’ll find them in discussions about the things that are really impacting the community as a whole. So when we talk about things like the link us effort, the efforts to bring transit accessibility and real mass transit to the Columbus region, number one more positioned where it’s really going to matter to us. And to we’re also positioned, I think, in a place that we should be influencing it and really looking at how does it not only impact Arlington, but the how does it impact the community as a whole, the greater communities all?
Tim Fulton 12:06
Got it? Talk about your time with the City of Columbus as the development director and sort of the the issues that you face there, and what you see is different now. Yeah, well,
Steve Schoeny 12:18
I mean, I love that job. And I love this. Yeah, it was an amazing time to be in that position, because we were transitioning from when I came in, in cash, but with that been 13, we’re still coming out of the Great Recession, where we are still bringing in vacant and abandoned, so I have the land back under me to okay, we’re still bringing in vacant and abandoned houses, we’re still getting things out of tax foreclosure. We’re, we’re I want to say we were up around like 1300 properties in the land bank, and we didn’t have a land trust yet. And all those different things. You know, I was on something where Michael Wilcox was from the the United Way was talking the other day. And he was talking about how one of the big challenges going forward is the that we’ve absorbed all of that underutilized housing, we’ve absorbed that housing that was on the sidelines. And so when I look at, you know, what’s changed today versus when I was there? That’s different, you know, in terms of the jobs, it’s interesting, you know, I I’m running an organization that’s about the same size. That that’s interesting, you know, because I had, it wasn’t just economic development, right. It was, it was such a broad portfolio. But you know, now, I don’t have, you know, I clearly don’t have the housing and code enforcement issues that I had with the City of Columbus. But, you know, now I’m learning about what it means to have an effective fire department and police department.
Tim Fulton 13:59
And how is that structured in Arlington? Like, do they directly?
Steve Schoeny 14:03
Yeah, yeah. So I enjoy telling my kids periodically that I am the chief law enforcement officer of the city of Arlington doesn’t usually do much for me. But I do I do tell them so, you know, in the charter, yes. The police chief reports to me, the fire chief reports to me. Okay, and so, you know, we’ve got you have
Tim Fulton 14:23
the ability to hire and fire them as well, or is that a role of counsel? But no,
Steve Schoeny 14:27
no, I have the ability to hire and fire them. Yes. Okay. So, you know, having that responsibility, having, you know, it wasn’t just COVID that we went through last year, right. It was the social unrest and the reckoning that came with the murder of George Floyd and, and all that came with that and and dealing with it both as, you know, helping the community talk it through and wrestle with what it meant for the community and helping our officers. talk it through and wrestle with what it meant. for them in terms of how they felt they were being portrayed and in society in the media and their commitment to the vocation and safety of people and dealing with all that. I mean, it was tough.
Tim Fulton 15:13
So given the time that you were at the City of Columbus, you spanned both Coleman, the coalmine administration and the get their administration want a little bit of insight on like, what the differences were, they’re not necessarily about, like, what were they like as bosses, but how priorities changed for you? And then also, now that you’ve been away for a couple of years, how do things seem to have changed just since you left?
Steve Schoeny 15:42
So you know, it was interesting. So, you know, I talked earlier about the evolution of where we went from having this, you know, having our biggest problem be vacant and abandoned housing and lack of investment and all these places, and the need to kind of get stuff going. So the need to get stuff going, was really, the focus still the focus on the Coleman, when we were with Coleman, and when get there came in, I think he saw, say, I’ll give him credit he saw ahead of the curve more than I did. That’s why he was mayor, and I was just director, the need to start shifting to how do we think about not just getting the wheels turning again, but making sure that they’re moving everybody forward? Right, how do we make sure that we’re getting ahead of the curve on things like affordable housing? How do we make sure that we’re thinking further down the road in terms of Lyndon and Coleman, it wasn’t a difference in desire wasn’t a difference in belief, it wasn’t a difference in any of that it was more difference in Hey, the time, the time is different. So it’s a time to change our focus, because I call them would tell you all those things are important, too. Right? Absolutely. But where he was the timing wasn’t right to emphasize those things. And then when, when Andy came in and went, and he really got going, he was right to be saying, Hey, we, we have got to focus on housing, housing, housing. And so that’s why we changed the rules around the Community Reinvestment areas, so that we were tearing it wasn’t that everybody was getting CRA s without any kind of strings in without any requirements for mixed income housing. That’s why we changed all that stuff. And, you know, got that ball rolling and, and pushed for investment, like the the fun that the Huntington Bank, you know, we put that together with them. So, yeah, I think that’s the biggest that was the biggest change
Tim Fulton 17:45
And now that you’re outside, what do you see is different?
Steve Schoeny 17:49
You know, it’s interesting. So first of all, you know, a, when you step away, you make a point of not kind of putting your toe back in and letting folks do their jobs. And right, there was such a, you know, I talked a little bit about the impact of social unrest and racial reckoning on Upper Arlington. Yeah, the impact of that, and the impact of COVID on the city of Columbus, even as someone who has knows the people in those the rolls, I have a hard I have a hard time as an outsider kind of getting my head around how big of a shock to the system that must have been?
Tim Fulton 18:25
Yeah, well, it’s still.
Steve Schoeny 18:27
Yeah, it’s still it’s right. And so, you know, I think the emphasis now really is what I talked about earlier, in terms of those. And I don’t know the statistics that Michael Wilco said, what was, I don’t know, off top my head. But you know, this idea that we’ve absorbed all the housing that was sitting on the sidelines, we’ve absorbed all of those slack resources that were on the sidelines now hat, what happens next? And that really is the big challenge. I mean, so you’re seeing really good kinds of growth, I’m really pleased with how they’re finishing out things around krusader. You know, I’m really pleased with the kinds of investments they’re seeing I, you know, I’m pleased, I’m really, really pleased to see them moving forward with looking at high high capacity transit corridors. And that code is looking at, you know, how do we expand on demand service and those kinds of things, because, fundamentally, the Columbus region will succeed unless we force ourselves into failure, as we look at kind of what the future economy looks like, looks like where, you know, people are looking people are looking for affordable communities with lots of amenities. And for decades, that has been the Columbus store, where the biggest college town and that that’s what college towns are, they’re affordable places with lots of amenities. And so, whether it’s a work from home environment, or hybrid environment, or whatever it is, this region is poised to succeed. You know, we’re resilient In terms of climate shocks and things like that this is we’ve got the things that people in businesses look for, we just have to be whether we’re willing to accept our success or not. We got to, we’re gonna have to. And you know, when I talk about the willingness to accept the success, it’s, you know, sometimes people don’t like that sometimes people don’t like change. Right, change is hard. It’s a cliche, but it’s something that we as a community have to get our heads around and really deal with.
Tim Fulton 20:28
When you were with the City of Columbus, what did you feel like you were most having to bang your head up against the wall? About?
Steve Schoeny 20:36
Oh, gosh, I blocked all that.
Tim Fulton 20:39
Oh, good for you. Good, good.
Steve Schoeny 20:43
Two years of therapy, you know,
Tim Fulton 20:47
or maybe maybe this way, maybe? What did you feel like it was hard to get people to understand about the city and the things that needed to be happening?
Steve Schoeny 20:58
Yeah, I think the hardest thing to get people to understand is that it’s not a zero sum game. So I go back to cover my meds when we were doing the project, doing the deal to take them out to where their headquarters is now. And the idea, we couldn’t get past this idea that some folks wanted to portray that we were somehow taking money from the schools. Mm hmm. You know, we ran all the numbers in the world, we had all the data in the world. And people just didn’t want to accept that this could be a good thing, because they, they didn’t like the narrative that it could be a good thing, for whatever reason,
Tim Fulton 21:43
I would say that maybe it’s easy to understand. There’s this big tax break happening, they don’t see the additional benefit that comes down the pike as a result.
Steve Schoeny 21:55
Well, and and you know, 100% is 00. Right? So sure, we could stop giving tax breaks, and you can get 100% of nothing, huh. And when you do a 15 year tax incentive, you’re 16 eventually comps. And your 16 is a really good year. And if you look at some of the school districts down around Rickenbacker, you know, you could name some school buildings, the year 16 building. Because if you look at the development patterns down there, those communities that offered aggressive incentives, their stuff build out really fast, and your 16 has come on all those buildings, and they’re paying a ton of money to schools. And you look at other communities like Columbus, where it took the city longer to come around to being aggressive in their tax incentives, where there’s a lot of land that still sitting there vacant, that, you know, the schools are collecting 100% of nothing. And you know, that, whereas Southwestern schools, or whoever it is down there, you know, maybe for went had to forego 75% or something for 15 years, or when you’re 16 Hit your 16 was a good year. So it was your 17 and 18, and then on in perpetuity.
Tim Fulton 23:13
And it’s hard to get people to basically make that investment or forego that money, the 100% of nothing or 75% of nothing for something that’s 15 years in the future, because it’s so it’s hard to wrap your head around. And it’s hard to it’s why there is a compulsory Social Security system. Like it’s hard for people to say, I’m going to need XYZ amount of money when I retire, or I’m going to want to retire or something’s going to happen to me. It’s difficult to wrap your head around flipping that forward towards Arlington. What do you find yourself having to negotiate or work around or get folks to understand in order to provide for the community?
Steve Schoeny 23:59
You know, it’s an Arlington’s an interesting place. It’s members of the community are very engaged. They will focus in on big issues, they will want to really dive into the specifics of an issue. So you know, the big thing we’ve got going on is we’re going to be building Arlington’s first ever community center. Okay, and it’s going to be in a seven storey building on the side of the old Macy’s a Kingsdale as part of a three building mixed use redevelopment that we’re that continental is doing the other two buildings. It’s going to, you know, the the community center portion of it’s gonna be $54 million to what we got budgeted, we’re going to have about 50,000 square feet of leasable space in there. OSU is announced their desire to take a little bit more than half of that.
Tim Fulton 24:53
And that’s the commercial space not the community center. Yeah, yeah, commercial space.
Steve Schoeny 24:57
So they’ll put some medical office some therapy stuff in They’re and, and really be partners with us in the building to help us make it more than just kind of a gym and a workout facility and a senior center for older adults. So, as with everything, I mean, the big challenge is getting people to adjust to change, whether it’s adjusting to the idea that, you know, we’re we’re going to be more dense, and we’re going to have higher form buildings in the right places. Because that’s what the market demands. And and, you know, that’s how you bring new people into the community. And that’s how you get people who are aging out of their current housing to stay in the community. Right. And, you know, it is it, it is really hard, though, to get people to adjust to change. And, you know, the other thing that we talk a lot about is making Arlington more welcoming. You know, we we are not the most diverse community in central Ohio. And that, that is something that, you know, there are a lot of reasons over time for that, but it’s something that we’ve got to do a better job of, you know, going out and saying that people, look, we value everyone, and we value every perspective, and we want you here in our community. And, you know, so if you’re if you’re looking at private, private school tuition on the side, why don’t you look at moving your family over on the other side of 71 and sending your kids here and live in here?
Tim Fulton 26:28
And there is some historical reason for the diversity. Right? Yeah,
Steve Schoeny 26:34
I mean, it’s, it’s heard lack of diversity rather. Yeah. Right. So yes, Arlington was set up with restrictive covenants that kept out people of color and and, you know, Jewish people. I mean, it’s just, it was part of how high end exclusive communities were built 100 years ago. Yep. And that’s a legacy that we acknowledge, and we acknowledge we got to work to get past. Arlington is a great community, we’ve got great things going for us. But we haven’t always let everybody come in and take advantage of that. And that gives us some work we got to do today.
Tim Fulton 27:14
And how are you addressing that?
Steve Schoeny 27:17
We’re still working on it. Because, you know, I’ll be honest with you, I’ve looked, I’ve found another community and country that’s kind of overcome that legacy. Nobody’s written that playbook yet. You know, it starts with being honest about it, and having conversations about it and not being afraid to say what I just said to you.
Tim Fulton 27:33
Absolutely. And that’s why I prompted it a little bit of like, I want, just say it, you know, yeah,
Steve Schoeny 27:39
no, it just it is what it is. I mean, you’ve just got to acknowledge it. So, you know, we put not we City Council put together a Community Relations Committee, just over a year ago now. So they’re just kind of getting themselves started. To help us kind of figure out how do we do this? You know, how do we become more welcoming? How do we tell our story in a way that’s better? How do we invite people in, in you know, oftentimes, people say, well, we just need to be more welcoming. I’m like, and I’ll say, a lot of times, you can be as welcoming as you want. But if nobody walks through the front door, you’re not being welcoming doesn’t do you much good. Right? So you know, how do we get more people to be willing to and feel okay, stepping through the front door in Arlington, because I do think, you know, it is a community that really does welcome people. And I, I am always struck by the warmth of the people here. And it’s just a matter of getting folks to come in and understand who we are. We’re not a community without problems. Every community has problems. But we take them off.
Tim Fulton 28:40
Good. What else is coming down the pike in Arlington in terms of what basically what’s on the horizon?
Steve Schoeny 28:48
Yeah. So there’s a bunch of stuff on the horizon. in a literal sense, the construction on the Arlington Gateway project at Lane in Northstar, right on the edge of campus is going to be a big deal. It’s going to be the tallest building in Arlington. It’s going to be called the Arlington gateway for a reason because it’s right there at the gateway of Upper Arlington. And it’s, you know, it’s leasing up really well. They’ve got a lot of interest in the building. I think it’s a great location. So, you know, we’ve really made a lot of progress in terms of changing Lane Avenue. So it really does feel like the way in which we welcome people into our community. We’re remaking the Kingsdale area so that it’s becoming more of the heart of our community. You know, that’s why we’re putting the community center there. And that will that really kind of sometimes I’ll talk about I want that to feel like you know, if the city is a is a house that needs to feel like the kitchen, like where real people really come together. Henderson road is kind of the next frontier for us. That will be hugely impacted by what happens with us the link us initiative and efforts to bring high capacity transit to the northwest side of Columbus. So is there’s a line that runs olan tangy cuts across to get over to sawmill and whether that line runs across Henderson or whether it runs across Bethel that will have a huge impact on the Bethel road corridor. Because if you bring access to high capacity transit, that close to our northern border, and then you know, in terms of our commercial quarters, that’s the one that, you know really hasn’t been re envisioned to think about what it having it become what it could be. And if you if you drive it sometime and you look at it, you think, Gosh, what could this be if, you know, we rethink some of these kind of tired strip centers, and we do something in there are some things where we can cooperate with the city, Columbus to really address how that area feels. That could be pretty amazing. So the other big thing is we’ve got the company that owns Charlie subs, and BB Bob bought the old, the old CompuServe headquarters, building that was purchased by a Tree of Life Church to try and build a school and I gotten a long fight with city about it. And eventually the City won and said, You can’t put school there, well, that that entity bought the parent company of those two restaurants and some others bought that they’re going to move in there, they’re going to redevelop the site. That’s a big thing that as we look kind of, as I look 510 years down the road, that’s an area that I think is ripe for a lot of excitement. And a lot of creative energy for us to put into, you know, we’re we’re still absorbing basically all brand new schools for except for our middle schools, which is a big thing for the community, the high school is really is a gem. I mean, it’s amazing. So there’s a lot going on. But you know, we’ve, we’ve got a lot to chew on right now with kind of getting this community center project going. And a couple of the other economic development things we’ve got going. So we’ll we’ll bring those in, we’ll work those there’s a couple of other things, little smaller projects that are working sites that are a little more challenged around town. And so those things are coming in. And then the other big thing is, you know, how do we I alluded to this a little earlier, when about one of your questions in terms of how Arlington is different how it fits into this broader context? How do we fit into things like high capacity transit? How do we fit into things like the greenways? How do we fit into rack and five? How do we connect to core trails, because as that develops, that is going to be a regional gem that our residents will will demand to get to in a it by more than just hopping in their car, right? They’re going to man, they can hop on their bike or run or, you know, whatever their way over there. So there’s a I mean, there’s a lot of great stuff going on.
Tim Fulton 32:59
That’s great. And when is the community center set to open?
Steve Schoeny 33:03
So that should open sometime in 24? Okay, we’re, we’re in design right now. So we’re hoping to finalize the program sometime over the before the end of the year, but really kind of get locked down? What’s going to happen in the building and what floors are going to happen on, right? You know, we’re not gonna have a rooftop pool, it would look really cool to have kind of the rooftop pool, but that’s not gonna work. How do we work that out? Where do we put various things in the building, we’ll have all that settled, by the end of the year, February, we’ll get to kind of hopefully some schematic design that gives a sense of what it’s really going to look and feel like from the outside in it as you go through the building, and then hopefully break ground sometime next fall 18 months to 24 month construction period. And then you’ve got to think, then we got to think
Tim Fulton 33:52
I want to wrap this up by asking two questions. One, what is Central Ohio or the Columbus region doing well? And then what is it not doing so? Well?
Steve Schoeny 34:05
You know, I think one thing that Columbus and Central Ohio does really well, and is continuing to do well is to bring in new voices and new ideas quickly and without a whole lot of stodginess, for lack of a better term. So, you know, one of the things I saw this, I saw this when I was in Columbus, and I I continue to see it here in our community, and I see it in the broader community where, you know, if somebody comes in and that and they show good ideas and the ability and willingness to work them, they’re brought in there at the table, right? The community that’s about what can you contribute? Doesn’t mean it’s easy, doesn’t mean people aren’t gonna push back on you. It doesn’t mean everybody gets to see the table. But if you come in and you show that you can work with others and you can add value to the decision There’s a seat at the table for you. And I think that’s one of the things that if this community continues that will make everything else work. You know, in terms of what do we not do? Well, I think this is something that every community struggles with the pace of change that we’re facing right now, is so rapid, that it’s a challenge. And I think the other thing that nobody’s doing well, right now is figuring out how you return back to kind of conversation conversations where everybody’s energies level energy level from a negative energy level is starting to three instead of seven. And I think you know, that’ll be another key to success, if we can find ways to keep bringing people to the table and bringing to the table. You know, where, where they’re starting at a three, you know, everybody, look, if you’re good, you’re starting with a you always got a little bit of edge to your right,
Tim Fulton 36:00
there’s gonna be skepticism. Yeah, yeah,
Steve Schoeny 36:03
yeah. But it’s getting people, you know, when we see bad behavior and lack of civility, among people, you know, one of the things I’ve said is that, whether it’s COVID, or it’s the social unrest, or it’s all of it, or whatever, whatever it is, you know, whereas before, you’d have one person in a room, starting at a level seven, you know, two people starting to five, and everybody else is starting at three or below, everybody’s coming in the room, and seven. And, you know, if we can find a way to kind of have these big conversations with everybody back to that normal spread of the spectrum, we’ll be able to get a lot more things done, and really make sure that, you know, I, I firmly believe that Upper Arlington can be the model of a community have kind of an inner ring suburb, successful community. And I firmly believe that Columbus should be the model of what a mid sized region looks like, in this kind of distributed workplace environment.
Tim Fulton 37:08
Absolutely. Thank you for your time.
Steve Schoeny 37:11
Oh, no, I love doing this. I love talking. I appreciate the work that you do, and everybody down and underground. And I think this isn’t this isn’t just a suck up. It’s partially a suck up. But I do think that having to what I said at the end, having groups that are willing to come and facilitate conversations and have conversations is really important in the civic culture. So I appreciate everything you guys have, everything you’re doing and everything that Walker and the team at underground have done since since he started that crazy venture a few years back, so
Tim Fulton 37:44
well thank you very much. Thank you for listening to the confidence cast presented by Columbus underground. Again, you can get more information on what we discussed today in the show notes for this episode at the confluence cast calm. Please rate, subscribe, share this episode of The confluence cast with your friends, family, contacts, enemies, your favorite city manager. If you’re interested in sponsoring the confluence cast, get in touch with us. We can be reached by email at info at the confluence cast calm. Our theme music was composed by Benji Robinson, our producers Phillip Cogley, I’m your host, Tim Fulton. Have a great week.
The post Upper Arlington appeared first on The Confluence Cast.
39 min
November 11, 2021Homeport
54,000 households in Central Ohio pay 50% of their income for housing. Homeport, along with other Columbus-based organizations, are working to fix that. This week, Homeport President and CEO Bruce Luecke discusses their work, the growing need for affordable housing in Columbus, and the contributing factors that hamper Columbus’s housing market.
Shownotes
Homeport
National Church Residences
Woda Cooper Companies
Wallick Communities
Affordable Housing Alliance
Community Shelter Board
Habitat for Humanity
The Confluence Cast is sponsored by The Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission featuring stories about local and regional partners that envision and embrace innovative directions in economic prosperity, transportation, sustainability and an inclusive Central Ohio. MORPC’s transformative programming, innovative services and public policy initiatives are designed to promote and support the vitality and growth in the region.
Full Transcript
Tim Fulton 00:14
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the confluence cast presented by Columbus underground. We are a weekly Columbus-centric podcast focusing on the civics, lifestyle, entertainment, and people of our city. I’m your host Tim Fulton. This week, I spoke with Bruce Lukey, the President and CEO of Central Ohio affordable housing nonprofit homeport. We discussed low income housing programs, how our population growth has affected the need for affordable housing in Columbus, working with communities on putting in affordable housing, and the contributing factors that hamper Columbus when it comes to affordable housing. You can get more information on what we’ve discussed today in the show notes for this episode at the confluence cast calm. Also, the confluence cast is on Patreon. Find out how to support this podcast on our website V Confluence cast calm or at patreon.com/confluence. The confluence cast is sponsored this week by the Mid Ohio Regional Planning Commission or MORP. C, featuring stories about our local and regional partners that envision and embrace innovative directions in economic prosperity, transportation, sustainability, and an inclusive Central Ohio MORP C’s transformative programming, innovative services and public policy initiatives are designed to promote and support the vitality and growth in the region. For more information, please visit more si.org Enjoy the interview. Sitting down here virtually with the CEO of home port Bruce Lukey. Bruce, how are you sir?
Bruce Luecke 01:58
I’m good, Tim. Thanks. Good.
Tim Fulton 02:00
So at a high level home port provides homes for folks with low to moderate income in central Ohio, correct?
Bruce Luecke 02:10
Yeah, correct. So we’re 34 years old, we have 41 communities around Central Ohio. Okay. That’s about 2500 2600 units, we serve 6500 people we have with us. And then we have another three to four in the works that will be coming within the next couple of months, if not year or so. So we’re growing quickly. And we not only you know, provide housing, and yes, it’s affordable housing. Okay, so typically, the client that we serve would make from 20 to 35 $40,000 per year. In fact, they would be rent restricted, based upon the financing that we use,
Tim Fulton 02:56
okay. And then define define rent restricted,
Bruce Luecke 03:00
meaning the rents the actual level of rents are actually restricted by basically the covenants in the loan agreement. Okay. And the investor agreements that we serve, okay, but we are meant to serve, you know, that population.
Tim Fulton 03:17
Got it. And so is it all apartment communities? Is that how folks should think of it?
Bruce Luecke 03:23
So we have today of the 2600 units or so all but 500 are multifamily? Okay, there’s 500 single family homes, but they are lease purchase homes. And again, based upon the financing, which is mostly made up of low income housing tax credits, they have to remain as rental properties for 15 years, and then they’re eligible to buy.
Tim Fulton 03:49
Okay, and is there some credit that they’re getting for those 15 years ahead of time, it’s basically rent to own is that simple way of putting it?
Bruce Luecke 03:58
Yeah, the way we treat it would be that we give them a for the number of years that they were there, we give them $1,000 per year and credit. Okay, and then on top of that, typically, you know, by year 15, homes usually need a makeover, a little bit of a makeover, right? So they typically get a new H vac system, they get a new roof, etc. So we make it so individuals don’t have to put a lot of their own money into the house to you know, to be able to buy,
Tim Fulton 04:27
okay, and the organization started in 87 Correct. How do you identify sorry, I want to be clear here. You guys own the units that you are providing to people?
Bruce Luecke 04:41
In essence Yes. It would take a whole two hours to explain the low how low income housing tax credit. Okay, Graham, but but, you know, most of our projects are financed through those tax credits and it you know, to boil it all down It is we give the equipment, there’s a couple different kinds of tax credit. So I’ll talk about the 9% tax credit. Sure, in essence, which is very competitive, very competitive, difficult to get. In essence, it puts about 70% of the equity into a deal. And then the balance that 30% is a made up of regular debt, in some cases, other forms of what they call soft debt, which is really generally federal funds that flow through the city or the county or whatever. So for for the perp because of those tax credits, those tax credits are awarded to us. And then we turn around and sell them to a syndicator. Who has investors who buy them, which are who are typically banks and insurance company.
Tim Fulton 05:48
Okay. And so that’s basically a low rate of return, but a pretty solid rate of return dependable, if you will.
Bruce Luecke 05:57
Yeah, that’s right. That’s right. And so what happens is, you know, they usually buy in for, you know, at least today, 92 ish, 93 cents on the dollar that goes into the project is equity. Okay. But the investor, literally for the first 15 years takes 99.9% of the ownership of the property. Okay, although we are the Managing Member, so we manage everything, we manage the properties, but that allows them to take not only the tax credits, but any losses, like depreciation and things that it would spin off. So that helps to increase the yield for them a little bit.
Tim Fulton 06:33
Got it? It’s a limited partner model. Really? Yeah. Think of it in terms of like, how a maybe a startup is finance, it’s very definitely a limited partner model. Got it? Got it makes sense? And then do you tend to build from the ground up? Are you acquiring properties? How does that process work?
Bruce Luecke 06:51
So we’ve tend to build from the ground up. Okay. Having said that, we are starting now, you know, to look at acquiring properties. The Columbus marketplace, real estate prices have gone up quite a bit. So we’re gonna talk about Yeah, that’s over the last couple of years. And so, you know, being able to buy and keep something affordable, is becoming more and more of a challenge. Okay. And, you know, and we can talk about that, but we, you know, generally speaking, we were a developer, so we would, you know, we would build from the ground up. And that’s what most of our problems are.
Tim Fulton 07:28
Okay. And you guys operate right now, according to your website with roughly a $4.8 million annual budget?
Bruce Luecke 07:39
Yeah, again, I don’t want to get overly complicated. I mean, it’s probably more like a $17 million budget, the difference is, what properties are still being held by investors and what properties are wholly owned by us. So at the end of 15 years with those tax credit properties, for example, we would typically buy out the limited partner interest, we buy it back from the investor, and then we you know, we would own both the GP and the LP interest, so we don’t the whole thing. Got it.
Tim Fulton 08:05
And that’s general partner and limited partner, just for the folks that don’t know. So I’m thinking about you guys, in terms of structure, like who are your stakeholders, your stakeholders are the I would say, the government institutions that are providing the credits and the grants and the loans, the investors who are looking for that promised rate of return on their investment, which tend to be institutions, as you said, and then the third part of it that I think I would hope folks care about the most, are the folks who are benefiting from having affordable housing.
Bruce Luecke 08:42
Yeah, that’s exactly that’s exactly right, you hit it right on the head. So if you think about it this way, you know, the two primary strategic priorities of ours are number one, being able to, you know, develop affordable housing, and to attempt to keep up with the market, although that’s getting a little bit harder and harder these days. And then secondly, and we feel very strongly about this, and it is a, you know, an equal strategic priority. And that is we have a laser focus on the clients that we serve. So if you think about the, you know, the incomes that they have, they’re living paycheck to paycheck, they do run into issues, you know, at times, they don’t necessarily have the same access to resources that you and I would typically have. Right? So we spent a lot of time working with them on making sure number one, that the properties are in great shape, they’re a great place to live, we’d all you know, be proud to live there. Number two, we want to keep them housed, which over the last 20 months has been a little bit more interesting than ever before, but we help them not only through monetary means, but we also provide financial education services, as well as right Isn’t it services to them? So I’ll give you an example, then, you know, that happens and, and an individual needs their car for work, the car breaks down, it’s a large expense. And they literally make a decision to say, Do I pay for my car so I can get the work? Or do I pay the rent? And, and it’s a very logical question. I mean, they’re, you’re, they’re trying to do the right thing, right? So, though, you know, we would step in and help people that way, not only just with money, but then we would also want to want to have them engaged in our financial education classes. So they’re better prepared the next time if that happens, right, right. And then, you know, the third element of that resident services would be linkages to services. So we’re not a social services organization, per se, right? We have, there’s many great social services organizations around the central Ohio area, you know, whether it’s education or health care, or you name it, right. So we have social workers on our staff, who work directly with our individuals, with our clients, our residents, understand what the issue is, get them to the place the best place for them, and then follow back around with them to make sure they’re being taken care of.
Tim Fulton 11:21
Okay, so let’s walk through a residence experience, they aren’t making enough money to be able to afford an apartment in Columbus, they would they need to qualify in order to rent from you guys.
Bruce Luecke 11:35
They wouldn’t need to, they wouldn’t need income qualify. Okay. And that’s on the bottom end and the top end, so they do need to have income to qualify, but then they also, you know, would not, you know, they can’t make generally speaking more than 60% of the area median income. Okay. Right. And that’s a number that’s based on the size of your family, etc. So, but that, so they would qualify that way to get in for the first time, once they’re in? They don’t have to qualify in that way. Okay, you know, every year, right? Well, they’re gonna wait, people out,
Tim Fulton 12:11
right, they start making $10,000 More, you’re not gonna say, Okay, it’s time to go, now, we this isn’t for you anymore.
Bruce Luecke 12:20
Yeah, we would, we wouldn’t do that. And, but, you know, again, we would hope and work with our, you know, residents to see what other opportunities, you know, they might have, we might link them to job training programs, or, you know, things like that. So they might move up and out. But the interesting thing about, you know, our residents is the average tenure in our apartments is six to six and a half years. Okay? If you compare that to a market rate, apartment, market rate apartment tenure is about a year and a half. So that tells you a little bit about on one end, it’s great. We keep them stable, right. It’s what they can afford. So it’s a good thing. Right, having, you know, that kind of tenure. Having said that, though, I would also tell you, sometimes I don’t know if that’s if it is good, because Are there enough programs to help them get up and out? Right? And are they taken advantage of the ability to do that? Or do they have the opportunity to take advantage of other programs to do that?
Tim Fulton 13:20
Yeah. So are you. And this is something that I am not super familiar with? Obviously, I understand that there’s a need for affordable housing, specifically in Columbus. What other organizations, either governmental or non governmental, like yourselves are doing this work?
Bruce Luecke 13:39
Sure. Well, so first of all, you know, we’re not a we’re not a government organization, right? What we happen to be a 501 C three, we’re a nonprofit organization. Columbus is actually kind of has strong players in this field, both on the local as well as the national level. Okay, concentrate on Central Ohio. So we’re probably the largest locally focused organization, but they’re great organizations like national church residences, which is located here, which is across the country. Woda development is here. Wallach is here. And so there’s, you know, the number of good organizations and as because Central Ohio seen such population growth organizations outside of Columbus are coming in to also be, you know, developers here. So, there’s a lot of activity and I would call it competition, but it’s really not. I mean, you know, there’s more than enough business to go around. And, in fact, many of our partners like Wallach, handles property management for, you know, majority of our residences, national church residents who concentrates on the senior population. They provide resident services for seniors. We have six independent, senior affordable housing communities, they do the resident service was forsure because that’s what they’re they’re really good at row. So we work together with them to,
Tim Fulton 15:05
okay, from an economics, not economy, but economic standpoint, where are the the shortages? Is it we constantly need more affordable housing? Are there? How are you connecting with folks who can’t afford a market rate apartment? What do you struggle with?
Bruce Luecke 15:25
So you so you’re gonna hear, you’re gonna hear a couple different numbers in the in the video right so okay. The one that’s most quoted is that there’s 54,000 households in central Ohio, who pay at least 50% or more for their housing.
Tim Fulton 15:41
Okay. 50% or more of their income? Correct. Got it.
Bruce Luecke 15:45
So think about what they can’t buy when right when there’s plenty. Right. So, but that 54,000 have hot, it’s just that they’re paying more than they probably can afford right at home. All right. So that’s one population that yet, think about. And then, you know, just in the last census, right column, Central Ohio grew by 15, over 15%. So we’re continually getting more people in the market, who need housing, and there isn’t available housing, so. So you really kind of have to look at both at serving the clients that are already here. But then serving, you know, the clients that are who are moving here. And that’s been a big issue for Central Highlands, not just affordable, it’s across the board on market rate housing, too. We just don’t have enough housing. Yeah, but the growth and Central Health,
Tim Fulton 16:39
Lisandro hot. Let me ask you, and I’m sure this is maybe a KPI, KPI, key performance indicator that you guys look at, or at least your board wants to know, what’s your occupancy rate of your units?
Bruce Luecke 16:53
Effectively, it’s 100%. Okay, my you know, you know, it might be 98%, because we might be turning a unit or turning the unit here or there or whatever. But effectively, it’s 100%. And we have waiting.
Tim Fulton 17:04
Got it. And that that was actually going to me, my follow up question is what how long is the wait, for someone who qualifies? And I assume it’s a it’s a binary state, right? Like they either qualify, or they don’t, it’s not a this person is in more need than another? Correct?
Bruce Luecke 17:21
Now, yeah, that’s, that’s generally true. It depends on it could depend upon the, the community that they’re moving into, okay. Or the, when we structure these tax credit deals, typically a percentage of the rents, they’re at varying percentages. So we might have X number of 60%, you know, y number at 50%, z number at 30%. Okay, so it depends what we need to fill, and what’s available. And so it could be that someone earning 60% of the area median income, wouldn’t necessarily be able to get an apartment because we have to fill that 30% unit.
Tim Fulton 18:04
Gotcha. And that’s a guarantee that you’re making when you’re structuring the deal up front. Right.
Bruce Luecke 18:10
Yeah, it’s a deed restriction. I mean, it’s a part of the financing.
Tim Fulton 18:13
Got it. That’s, and so you’re limited by that. It’s not that you’re a bad guy. It’s literally like, this is what this was built for. That’s exactly right. Gotcha. And so could you say, like, on average, then how long someone may have to wait upon qualifying upon applying how long they may have to wait to get an affordable housing unit?
Bruce Luecke 18:34
I’m probably don’t have an exact number for you. Okay, with some people, it’s six months to a year and maybe even more, I mean, I over the last 20 months. I mean, we’ve virtually had nobody move out. Right. Right. And so it’s been really difficult, you know, through the pandemic,
Tim Fulton 18:51
okay, can you talk about some of the challenges that you guys faced during that?
Bruce Luecke 18:56
Sure. So with the pandemic, you know, with the focus we have on our residents, many of them had jobs that were, you know, very vulnerable to either losing that either lost their job, or in the harder ones. In many cases, individuals were hourly workers, and their hours were significantly cut back. So think about that for a second, right? If your hours get cut back to 30 or 20%, of what they were, while you still have to support, you know, a family or and, you know, and all the things you have, but you can’t file for unemployment. Right. Right. So, typically, in pre pandemic, we usually help them on average, about 60 households per year. Avoid emergency eviction, you know, first, you know, reason that in 2020 was about 280 And this year, it’ll be more than that. So last year, we paid out about $475,000, in rental assistance, okay? Help people stay in their homes, this year, that number is going to look more like $600,000. To help keep up, people stay in their homes, right. And those are dollars that have come either from two sources. They’ve either come through the federal government, you know, the subsidy monies. And that’s where most of the dollars have come through. And we we’ve partnered with impact Community Action, they are providing those dollars, or they’re the, you know, the provider of those dollars in working with the government. Or immediately, once the pandemic started, we actually set aside, you know, $100,000 of our own money, and then had it matched by a number of organizations like the Columbus Foundation, and a couple banks and United Way etc. And so we have our own fun, too. If they don’t quite qualify for, you know, this, you know, the subsidy money, then they probably qualify for the dollars that we have set aside because we want to keep them house, we have a focus on keeping them housed and stable.
Tim Fulton 21:16
Right. And I just want to make sure that I’m clear here, they’re paying their rent to you as well. Right. That’s right. So basically, you’re, you’re correcting the books for them. Yeah,
Bruce Luecke 21:27
but it’s keeping them out of eviction court, you know, in all that all the things that go along with that, right, we’re keeping them stable?
Tim Fulton 21:34
Absolutely. It feels very similar to the payroll protection program that happened towards the beginning of the pandemic, where you’re basically allowing things to remain the same, because the situation is very, very different than it was before. Correct. Gotcha. There’s a lot of conversation that happens around affordable housing, and specifically nimbyism, not in my backyard. How do you guys identify where you should put affordable housing units? And how do you address the surrounding communities? If there’s pushback towards from that?
Bruce Luecke 22:10
Sure. Alright, so that’s two different questions. Okay. So, and actually, your, you know, the first about how do we identify, yeah, is actually kind of interesting, too. So, you know, I, in the ideal world, just like any developer, you would go to where the most need would be, right? The thing though, that we have to factor on top of that is, remember, I said that we finance with low income housing tax credits. So the, you know, the 9% tax credits, which provide the 70% of the right, they are very competitive, and they’re, they’re awarded by the Ohio Housing Finance Agency, okay. And they have a plan, it’s called a QA P, or a Qualified Allocation Plan. It’s almost like scoring points, like you gotta you got to meet, you have to meet certain things to be able to qualify a property could be near transportation, or there’s just all kinds of different, you know, different type items. Okay. In many cases, what that does, is now that kind of changes where we need to go to where we can score the best. Yeah. Right. And because last year, just to give you an example, you know, probably through throughout the state, there will probably at least 90 applications that went in for, you know, credits, I would bet 35 were awarded. Okay. So it’s very competitive,
Tim Fulton 23:44
and it’s a fixed amount of money every year, right? It
Bruce Luecke 23:47
is not always a fixed amount of money. I mean, once you the credits are awarded, right, it is, but not all credits are the same, okay? On the size of the project, etc, they are kept though, you know, that’s something that we just, it’s a way of life with if you’re going to finance with tax credits, because you have to find a place where you know, where we’re going to qualify whether whether it’s in central Ohio, because it’s growing so quickly, doesn’t necessarily qualify, as well as like Cincinnati, or Cleveland, particularly Cleveland for a couple different things that you know, some of it has to do with the percentage of need. Some of it has to do with the transit score. So how, you know, how close are you to transit, etc. Well, if you compare a more mature city like Cleveland, they have more areas that would, you know, be able to garner points than a growing city like Columbus. So for example, we had an application in to build in the city of Delaware, you know, the last tax tax credit cycle, it just didn’t score well, because there’s no transportation, you know, up there, etc, a number of different factors. So those are things we have to always You know, keep in mind, and it becomes a part of what we do.
Tim Fulton 25:04
Okay, what’s interesting here is you’re talking about the various contributing factors for a limit in the amount of affordable housing we have. That’s right. Got it? And then to address the other question, how do you approach the surrounding communities? Or do you? We do, okay.
Bruce Luecke 25:25
Yeah, I mean, over the past couple years, so we’ve completed a project in Grove City, we’ve completed a project and Reynoldsburg. You know, so we work with within the city, and we work, you know, in the suburbs in the suburbs. So this gets to your second question about, you know, community support, etc, right. Yeah. Every time any developer, it doesn’t matter if it’s a market rate development, or an affordable development, right, it still has to go through a process, a zoning process. If it needs to be rezone, it still has to go through an approval process and in that community. And so, you know, maybe what makes affordable, a little bit harder than some others. Right, is you do we do get nimbyism, and we work very closely with those neighborhoods, we want to be a good neighbor. And so we, you know, we don’t tend to force anything at anybody, we get to know the neighborhood’s we get if it’s in the city of Columbus, you know, we know that, you know, we know of neighborhood Commission’s we know, the people who, you know, will make a difference in those areas. And we spend a lot of time with them. Does it always work? No, it doesn’t always work. But, you know, that’s the approach, you know, that we’ve opted to take, and that is, we’re going to be we have to be a good neighbor. And so, you know, we’ve had many examples where, you know, we’ve might have changed some things slightly, because, you know, it’s a, it turned out to be, you know, something that the community brought up, it was a win win. And, and we and we changed a couple things. There’s a lot of discussion that goes on, prior to taking it, you know, to any kind of municipal, you know, bodies to, you know, to get approved
Tim Fulton 27:17
to get that support. Absolutely. Right. And, Bruce, what is your background? What brings you to this role? Yeah,
Bruce Luecke 27:24
so I was, for the most part, I was a banker for most of my career. Okay, I was on the home port board. I had actually retired. So I had retired. I’ve been retired for about a year, and then we needed to replace our CEO. I think it goes something like this one of the board members, we had a small group of board members sitting around talking about what we were going to do and and what to look for means that you’re not doing anything right now. So how about filling in on an interim basis? So I did I filled in on interim basis, somehow interim turned into permanent NAB been here, you know, it’ll be six years. I’m actually retiring at the end of the year. So relations. Thank you. But so yeah, so interim turned into six years, but it’s been wonderful. It’s been just a blessing to be able to do this.
Tim Fulton 28:07
Yeah, absolutely. I tend to end interviews with two really basic questions. What is Columbus doing? Well, and what is Columbus doing? Not so well. So I want to posit that to you, you can obviously include all of Central Ohio, from your perspective, and this could be specifically related to home port or not, what is Columbus, excuse me? What is Central Ohio doing?
Bruce Luecke 28:32
So, um, you know, about six years or six, seven years ago, we came together with a number of our peers, to create the Affordable Housing Alliance of Central Ohio, here in this market. And it has paid a lot of dividends. I was skeptical at first having organizations you know, I mean, you know, you do a little of this, right? Well, you’re giving up power, right, like we are. But, you know, we’ve been very good at really concentrating on the top two or three things that are going to help everyone, right. And it’s not only been financially but it’s also been very helpful from an advocacy perspective. And so I’ve seen, you know, just the whole, affordable housing, concept and ideas has grown so much in central Ohio over the past five to six years, where the community really embraces that business community has embraced it. And when I hear peers around the state from other cities, I don’t think there’s any place like Central Ohio that has truly embraced affordable housing as a need. Now whether we’re all there yet is a different issue. But people see it and I think there was a couple things that drives that. But affordable housing is always going to be a social issue. It always has and always will, right. I mean, stability is just critical. But I think what the central Ohio community and this is not just the public sector, but this is the private sector. Here is what, you know what they’ve also truly realizes this is an economic development issue. Mm hmm. If, you know, if we don’t have housing, we’re not going to be able to continue to attract business, we’re not going to be happy and be able to have, you know, strong, strong business community here, a strong neighborhood community here. You know, the whole point about being a prosperous community isn’t going to happen, unless we have housing for people to live. Right. So they’ve embraced that. And so I think that’s been the difference. I mean, it’s been the combination of the two. And so I see Central High, Ohio is out ahead. And, you know, a couple things have happened, just to demonstrate that point, you know, Columbus passed $100 million affordable, you know, bond fund a couple years ago, right, allocate dollars, there were a number of organizations working together with the Alliance, who put together a $100 million housing Action Fund to be able to fund what we do here. So there’s more and more happening there that I think the awareness level is very high in Central Hall.
Tim Fulton 31:14
And it’s a matter of collaboration to that, like, that’s, that’s what’s causing that awareness and correct and moving the ball forward.
Bruce Luecke 31:23
Yeah, I mean, the alliance is interesting, because if you think about the continuum of housing, right, so we concentrate in the permanent space, but one of our peers in the alliance is the shelter board. And Habitat for Humanity’s in there, and, and permanent supportive housing organizations are in there. And so, you know, it kind of goes across the, you know, that whole spectrum of housing and the need for housing, because there isn’t just one need. I think the second thing real quickly, that we’ve really tried to work on that I think the community is really starting to understand is there is absolutely no silver bullet here. There’s no silver bullet, right. So we actually built a three part platform, the Alliance did, and have been working, you know, working on the platform. But number one, we do need more housing, right, we do need to invest in more housing. And so you know, we need the dollars to be able to do that, number one. Number two, we need to keep the housing that we already have. Affordable, huh? Oh, and that comes in two different forms, that comes either in the form of, you know, making sure neighborhoods stay stable, and putting dollars back in the neighborhoods to help, you know, keep them that way. Or there are more and more apartments now, because of the market. And, and what’s happened in the market that are increased in value. Mm hmm. So it’s very difficult for an organization like us to go by market value, but keep rents affordable, right. So so that’s another area that we’re really, really concentrating on. And then I would say the third element is something that’s based on housing, but it’s not really housing, it’s, it’s really based on helping people increase their incomes, so they can afford more. And so we just kicked off, I think, just a really neat program called resiliency bridge. Okay. And what resiliency bridge does is provide people who have the motivation to increase their earning power, and their, you know, their skills or their education, right. It surrounds them with housing support, with food support, with a case manager, and the whole point is to get them from where they are at today, to at least about a $20 per hour job. Okay, because they have to do that to get through the, you know, the benefit cliff. Right, right. And if they can get to that point, they can come out of affordable housing, and they’re, it’s a benefit to them, right? I mean, they’re building their skills, because the, when we talk to our residents, one of the problems that you know, they have is when you ask them, you know, would you like to be able to do this or like, sure, but I can’t afford to take a day off a week off a month off to be able to go back to school or re training or whatever, right. So this resiliency program actually supports them for that period of time. So it takes risk away from them. So it does allow them to get to that point. So it’s just getting off the ground now. And it’s based upon a program that we’ve been piloting at Columbus State called Success bridge, okay, which has helped students stay in school with these kinds of with these kinds of programs. So that’s great. So I think that’s a lot of benefit benefit stuff. You know, I mean, as far as where we still need to go, Columbus is really looking at their zoning code. They’re looking at tax incentives. You know, a number of the Munis municipalities are doing the same thing. Those things need to happen. regulatory environment to get things done is just difficult right now and so they need to get done.
Tim Fulton 35:08
Okay. And that’s your answer to what what is Columbus doing? Not so well, it’s this opportunity to fix these the regulatory environment basically.
Bruce Luecke 35:17
Yeah, I wouldn’t say it’s not so well, but it’s not done yet. Right. So
Tim Fulton 35:22
well, it’s hard to do things we got, you know, we’ve got a city charter, we’ve got all kinds of things that that, you know, we could we could dust off and look at, right.
Bruce Luecke 35:30
That’s exactly right. But that’s in process. So relook at the zoning code is in process right now.
Tim Fulton 35:35
Absolutely. Is there anything else, Bruce, that you wanted to cover today?
Bruce Luecke 35:39
No, you know, I just, I just can’t reinforce again, the the need, you know, particularly in a growth community like Central Ohio, you know, one and isn’t it wonderful to live in a community that’s growing and thriving, but sometimes that also brings, you know, you know, the dark side of, of, of, you know, growing with it, and we just have to make sure we acknowledge that. And, you know, and again, the last thing I would say is, like I said before, there’s no silver bullets here, or there’s no one organization or project that can do it alone. And so we have to band together we have to work together across the business community, in the public sector and across, you know, the housing markets, etc. To be able to do
Tim Fulton 36:21
this. Absolutely. Bruce, thank you so much for your time. Sure,
Bruce Luecke 36:25
Tim, I appreciate it.
Tim Fulton 36:37
Thank you for listening to the confluence cast presented by Columbus underground. Again, you can get more information on what we discussed today in the show notes for this episode at the confluence cast comm please rate subscribe, share this episode of The confluence cast with your friends, family, contacts, enemies, your favorite housing advocate. If you’re interested in sponsoring the confluence cast, get in touch with us. We can be reached by email at info at the confluence cast calm. Our theme music was composed by Benji Robinson, our producers Phillip Cogley, I’m your host, Tim Fulton. Have a great week.
The post Homeport appeared first on The Confluence Cast.
38 min
September 02, 2021Greater Columbus Arts Council
What’s the difference between being an arts advocate and an artists’ advocate? Look to the policies and missions of the Greater Columbus Arts Council for an idea. This week, I spoke with Jami Goldstein, Vice President of Marketing, Communications & Events. We discussed the organization and how it’s funded, their non-competitive grants programs, their new office and gallery space, how the arts community has the opportunity to engage and uplift marginalized communities, and the importance of public art.
Shownotes
GCAC
ROY G BIV Gallery
Summer Jam West
Columbus Arts Festival
Columbus Makes Art
Passport Program
Brad DeHays
Connect Realty
Loann Crane Gallery
King Arts Complex
GCAC Equity Statements
#ArtUnitesCBUS
Deliver Black Dreams
Beeler Gallery
Wexner Center for the Arts
Marshall Shorts
Shayla Favor
Public Art Database
Columbus Art Commission
Columbus Metropolitan Library
Stephanie Rond
Can’t Stop Columbus
Art Walks
Shadowbox Cabaret
Full transcript on page 2.
The post Greater Columbus Arts Council appeared first on The Confluence Cast.
37 min