The other night the parking committee increased the number of spots before you need planning board approval from 9 to 15 !!!! Now I read this below!!!!!!! My god is someone finally asking whether the benefits or rehabbing apartments at a cost of $300,000 per unit makes sense????
I got another for this City Council.. Why not make the CDC's using a the purchasing offices of one John Orrell to give everyone a chance any maybe lower the cost?? You ever notice that the same contractors are always hired?? Ironcially the same people who complain about City Square not hiring local contractors say nothing when multi-million dollar low income housing do not hire one local contractor?
20j. Motion Lukes @ #8.4C CM - Request City Manager obtain the average per square foot cost in a private housing development versus a publicly funded housing development of a similar size.
Attachments
Order adopted
Same Time Next Year
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It’s been nearly a year since I wrote about the problems that come from
having 11 bosses who are not on the same page about anything, as well as
suggestion...
4 months ago
13 comments:
I agree w/you Bill, but I would guess that you're going to run into a legal wall of sorts. It's the CDC's who are paying the money and not the city. So it may be outside the rules for the city purchasing office to get involved????? No one has ever answered my question re whether CDCs are bound by prevailing wages laws.
Keeping all the money and all the bidding inside the CDC's makes it so much easier to buy votes :) It's called less accountablity.
Oddly enuff however, if EONS auctions off tax title property to CDC's or other for profit builders and in the bidding process encourages the constr of low income housing in these bids you need to jump through all kinds of hoops with cost projections and other assorted constraints.
On another topic, todays T&G ( 3-3) has a front page piece re: violence on city street of late and has graphics comparing 2012 so far vs. prior years.
Interstingly enough, violence for the purpose of this piece is limted only to shootings?? HUH? What about stabbings, A&B's, etc that result in serious baudily injury being included as city violence? Wonder what the stats will look like then?
The sub heading in the article states "statistics suggest Worcester is safe city", yet the only violence stats they're talking about in the article are shootings? Sorry, but IMO the logic is lacking here and/or the artilce infers shootings are the only violence Worc. succumbs to?? Color me confused?
And of course they put it in the Saturday paper WTH reads the Saturday paper unless they're in the market for a caaaaaah ?? :)
And who really cares if the gentleman from Oak Hill CDC grew up in "WHA properties" . Notice it doesnt say WHA 'projects', just WHA properties. Relevance to the topic at hand please? Frankly some of these seccion ocho apts that the WHA administers are beautiful places. I mean after all they have to be if CDC's built many of them....right?? :)
Jahn
You are right
Simple , the city does not give them any more HUD monies or any other grant until they agree to use the City of Worcester purchasing department
Would you require any developer receiving HUD funds to utilize City's purchasing office?
I (Claude P. Dorman & Kunigunde Cigan) have high hopes for this new Worcester City Council. We hope it will concentrate on the urban neighborhoods and to work towards creating a better synergy between the colleges and the neighborhoods. Kuni & I would love to see a Worcester College Czar. Any thoughts on this Jahn
Claude P. Dorman
38 Sever Street
Worcester, Massachusetts
A good idea Bill, but most if not all of the monies come from Beaconhill, DC, federal & state low income housing tax credits, a few private west side donors, and who knows what else.
Often the only city monies are the city guaranteed HOme Funds which ArE OFTEN at a $25K (?) PER UNIT MAXIMUM?
I am also thinking that YES the city bidding office can handle the bids, but unfortunately that sall that can be involved in, i.e. just the mechanics of the bidding process. It's up to the CDC's to decide which bidder wins which again opens the dorr to favoritism. Then again, I assume an aggrieved losing bidder can always resort the court system.......which if the losing bidder digs in their heels could delay a project for a fair amt of time.
Mr. Dorman (Mr Newman/Mr Howdy Doody?), welcome aboard. Maybe Bill will post my pic so you'll have a mental image of me :)
a. Why do you have high hopes for this CC, esp. given that it consists of only 2 (is it?) new CCs...Mr Russell and is there one other?
b. Call me baffled, but where else would the CC concentrate their efforts? Suburban neighborhoods? Or maybe you mean vs. concentrating their efforts on industry, or schools, or infrastructure or heaven forbid finances?
c. Does better synergy with colleges = More $$$$$$ in the form of Pilot Payments or fewer frat boys watering your grass on a warm spring Saturday night?? :)
d. What goals to you have high hopes for the new (18% new...2 of 11).
e. Here's one of my goals. It was stated by a currently sitting CC a couple years on Jordans show that 12% of the city workforce is out on disablity. Frankly, I have hard time believing it's this high. I am thinking that if we can clean up thsi all too often abused disablity system that it would free up plenty of money for your urban neighborhoods? Imean if it was stated on Jordan show, it must be true?? :)
e. Mr Dorman what is your postion on City SqUARE?
Tank yew fore joining uz
Oppps, also, a Worc College CZar? Please enlighten me with some details there Barack Dorman j/k :).
Would a college czar have stopped the unmitigated gaul of Clark university asking for and receiving from the city for free a 6,000 sq ft parcel of land fomerly known as Downing St that used to run through the Clark campus? Do you think the city would even consider giving you a 10 foot wide sidewalk area in front of your home (assuming you own your own home?)
TY
Kunigunde Cigan & I (Claude P. Dorman) do not consider the west side nor other border neighborhoods "urban".
We love George Russell's Realty Show-never miss an episode!
Kunigunde Cigan & I (Claude P. Dorman) think that CitySquare has taken away from the neighborhoods and that it will only make it easier for the work challeneged to walk to Union Station and Shrewsbury Street for a drink...burp!
Bill, I think you might also should think about obtaining not only the average per sq ft cost of each uniit, but the total cost of each unit and then compare that total cost to the current assessed value........OR....... if you can still obtain it, the assessed value immediately after construction.
E.g. I think I had figured that Worc Commons Grds May St debacle that cost $250,000 per unit now has each unit assessed at about $37,000 if my memory is correct
A great starting point might be the 4 three deckers at Hollis & Kilby that MSCDC allegedly spent $600,000 back in 2000-2001 on vs their asssessed values now 10 years later.
We need to keep in mind that assessed values and cost are each a horse of a differernt color, but there s/b some correlation.
Worc's rresponse to local towing crisis??? Make it easier to construct new parkign spaces?
Don't be so critical Mr. Jahn of the Worcester City Council! Before it was for food street vendors it was against food street vendors.
Hopefully a College Czar wood get these college "animal house" dorms under control. Kunigunde Cigan and I, Claude P. Dorman were flabbergasted at the behavior flowing out of them when we bought a home at 38 Sever Street that is directly across the street from one. Who would have thought that we would be subject to a college atmosphere living directly next door to Becker College?
Even after hundreds of calls to the college,the police and anyone else who would listen-no one would! And no one does.
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