[OccupyCU] Bristol Place follow-up story

[Brian Dolinar]

This article posted at
ucimc.org<http://ucimc.org/content/emails-reveal-champaign-city-staff-working-behind-scenes-level-bristol-place>.
BD


Emails Reveal Champaign City Staff Working Behind the Scenes to Level
Bristol Place



A recent Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request produced hundreds of
pages of emails from staff with the City of Champaign and Housing Authority
of Champaign County (HACC) about plans for the redevelopment of Bristol
Place. In a recent
story<http://www.news-gazette.com/news/business/housing/2012-09-12/gerard-pick-housing-authority-board-could-sway-bristol-park-decisio>in
the
*News-Gazette*, Champaign Mayor Don Gerard defended the project and said he
wanted to put to rest "talk on the street." FOIA'd emails reveal the city's
intentions in their own words. City staff and Housing Authority Executive
Director Ed Bland have moved forward with plans while keeping from the
Housing Authority Board of Commissioners their designs for a land grab.



Bristol Place is a triangular-shaped neighborhood bordered by Shadow Wood
Mobile Home Park to the north, Market Street to the west, Bradley Avenue to
the south, and the Canadian National railroad tracks to the east. It is a
part of Bristol Park along with the Garwood neighborhood, to the west of
Market Street, which the city also plans to redevelop on a smaller scale.
Bristol Place includes between 75-100 homes which are slated to be torn
down by the city through a process of buying out homeowners, using eminent
domain if necessary, and handing out Section 8 vouchers provided by the
Housing Authority to eligible tenants for relocation. The project is
expected to cost the city more than $7 million.



It appears from email correspondence that by January 2012, Ed Bland and
Champaign city staff were already working together to redevelop Bristol
Place. On January 13, 2012, Patty Smith, HACC's Director of Capital
Programs, sent an email to her boss, HACC Executive Director Ed Bland, HACC
consultant Cindi Herrera, Champaign community development specialist Greg
Skaggs, and developer for The Benoit Group, Torian Priestly. Smith had met
earlier in the week with the City of Champaign who wanted to set up monthly
meetings to discuss "Champaign development issues." She proposed meeting
before HACC Board meetings in the housing authority building, "since we
will have so many commitments back to back."



This confirms the account of Esther Patt, of the Tenant Union, who was
invited to join the Bristol Park Neighborhood Steering Committee, created
by the City of Champaign. According to Patt, at a meeting she attended in
January 2012, Ed Bland said that the housing authority could probably
provide Section 8 vouchers for everybody qualified for them in Bristol
Place.



Not long after these discussions began, residents in the Bristol Place
neighborhood began to raise questions about what would happen to their
homes. Faye Ballard lives with her mother at 108 E. Garwood. After
attending a neighborhood meeting organized by the city, she wrote a letter
to Greg Skaggs stating her "extreme displeasure" that city might
"involuntarily" acquire the property her family had owned for more than 50
years. She operated a shoe repair business out of the house that could not
easily be moved. She saw no reason that "all of us should have to do
something we may not want to do (and probably cannot in the long-run afford
to do) because of a few." She threatened to go public with the city's plans
to "throw" her 82-year-old mother out of her home.



Yet there are also signs that Bland was not as enthusiastic as Champaign
city staff about this project. On March 29, 2012, Kerri Spear sent Kevin
Jackson a news report from *Housing Affairs Letter* about cuts to housing
authorities across the country. She speculates, "This may explain why Ed is
reluctant to 'add' more vouchers to his inventory."



Yet by March 2012, a draft had been written of an intergovernmental
agreement between Champaign and HACC for the redevelopment of Bristol
Place. In April, Greg Skaggs said that they had discussed language saying
that the two parties would have an "equal" share in the partnership.
Indeed, a report by city manager Steve Carter provided to city council in
preparation for a May 8 study session stated that the Housing Authority
could be deemed an "equal partner" in the Bristol Place redevelopment.
Skaggs also requested that Ed Bland be present for the study session in
case council members had questions.



*No-Bid Contract *

Additionally, the use of the Atlanta-based developer The Benoit Group, was
already arranged by HACC staff. In June, Kerri Spear asked Patty Smith to
confirm whether the HACC was comfortable with giving the contract to Torian
Priestly of The Benoit Group, who had earlier been invited to the January
meeting. On June 13, Spear wrote, "I felt very strongly that Torian was
patiently sitting on his hands, waiting for us to ask him to join in the
project. :)" Patti Smith responded positively, "We [...] spoke to our
attorney, Eric Hanson, regarding our solicitation of The Benoit
Group--specifically as it may apply to the HACC's and The Benoit Group's
participation as our developer in the Bristol Place redevelopment. Eric
told us he had no problem with it." Benoit already has a contract to
develop former public housing units Dorsey Homes and Dunbar Court.* *While
Patty Smith found it reasonable to talk to their attorney, she did not run
it past the Board of Commissioners. If allowed, a no-bid contract would be
given out to The Benoit Group worth millions of dollars.



Word soon got out that Champaign was crafting a resolution to use Section 8
vouchers to fund its redevelopment of Bristol Place. When Antwaun Neely, a
local landlord who rents to many Section 8 recipients, heard of the
proposal, he alerted the Chicago office of HUD. In a letter dated June 1,
2012, he expressed his outrage that, "The HACC would be relieving the city,
in part of its responsibility to help the families that the CITY is
displacing at an estimated cost of a million dollars!!" He continued, "It
also strikes me that this resolution appears to suggest that the HACC
currently has the vouchers for use, yet is holding them aside to be used as
a bartering tool with the city." Exactly what Ed Bland has to gain from
this deal is still unclear.



At one point, there is an indication that the individuals involved knew
they were hiding their plans. There is one exchange of emails with the
Chicago branch of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) regarding the Housing
Authority's ability to give "local preferences" to those displaced. HUD
would later issue two
rulings<http://ucimc.org/content/champaign-housing-authority-considers-demolishing-third-black-neighborhood>denying
that Section 8 vouchers could be given out with preference to those
affected by the redevelopment. In an email, dated June 28, 2012, Kevin
Jackson wrote to Kerri Spear, "Ed has previously requested discretion with
communication on this issue. Thanks."



The city's current policy of willful neglect is allowing Bristol Place to
further deteriorate. When a property owned by the city and used as a safe
house by The Center for Women in Transition was vacated because it needed
repairs, the city decided to let the house sit empty. As Kerri Spear wrote,
"Greg Skaggs is working behind the scenes on this and we have decided to go
ahead and take the property back rather than have any additional funds
expended on rehab."



Another house at 1412 N. Market needed external repairs, but due to an
absentee landlord, none of the maintenance had been addressed despite
complaints. In an email, Kevin Jackson responded to the issue, "As far as
1412 is concerned... these remaining violations seem to require investment in
repairs to the structure and should not be pursued, unless safety is an
issue." Kerri Spear agreed, even though she admitted it could be "three
years" before the property was purchased if, for example, a seller was
"unwilling" or tenants were "housing-challenged." As of June, there was
still a tenant living in the house. Much of the blight in Bristol Place
could be improved, and for less money, if the city would enforce its
housing codes.



*Love Corner Gets Entire Block*

At the meeting of the Board of Commissioners in August, local black
activist Terry Townsend called for Commissioner Bishop Lloyd Gwin to
abstain from voting on Bristol Place. As Townsend revealed, Gwin is a
partial owner of a property at 1307 N. Clock St. in Bristol Place, and any
vote he made would be a conflict of interest. Gwin would surely get more
out of what he invested in the property, with an assessed value of $14,
920, if the city were to acquire it. HACC attorney Eric Hanson, who was at
the board meeting, said that because the property owned by Gwin had not
been designated as one to be acquired by the city, there was no conflict.
Yet an email from from Kerry Spear, dated July 17, 2012, includes a list of
84 addresses labeled "potential relocation households," among which is 1307
N. Clock St.



Responding to Townsend's demand in the
*News-Gazette*<http://www.news-gazette.com/news/business/housing/2012-09-12/gerard-pick-housing-authority-board-could-sway-bristol-park-decisio>,
Gwin said his interest in the property was "minimal." Yet if we consider
the multiple properties held by Pastor Gwin and his Church of the Living
God in the surrounding neighborhood, his footprint is much larger. The
Church of the Living God owns four large properties directly east of
Bristol Place on the other side of the railroad tracks, a plot of land
totaling just over 40 acres which is to be the site for his new megachurch.
His current church, nicknamed "The Love Corner," is on the southwest side
of Fourth Street and Bradley Avenue. The church also purchased the old
NAACP building on the north side of Bradley, just west of Fourth.



Over the summer, the city paved an extension of Fourth Street north of
Bradley, put in sidewalks, sod grass, and drainage, spending nearly half a
million dollars in taxpayer money. On June 5, 2012, city council voted 9-0
to approve the project. At the council meeting, Gwin said this project
would benefit the "entire community," but his church was the biggest winner
with free infrastructure provided by the City of Champaign. The city gains
little from the church, as it is a tax-exempt institution. In July, there
was a groundbreaking for the new church which will be a 30,000 square feet
facility expected to cost $2.5-3 million.



What do Champaign city officials want the neighborhood to look like in five
years? In January, Greg Skaggs expressed the city's wishes to Patty Smith,
"We would like to develop both sides of Market St.... and then replace all of
the homes in Bristol Place between Market and the RR tracks. Our vision is
for a different look along Market St. than the rest of the development.
Maybe townhomes or low-rise, moderately higher density than the current
single family home model. There is a family Dollar store and a funeral home
on the south end (Market and Bradley) that are planned to remain." In May,
Kevin Jackson wrote, "the new development will most likely be town homes
with some or no single family units." The population of low-income
residents, tenants, long-time homeowners, and predominantly African
American families would be relocated, with their ability to return left
uncertain.



A meeting of the Coaltion for Affordable Housing will take place on
Saturday, Sept. 22 at 5pm at the Independent Media Center, 202 S. Broadway,
in the old Urbana post office.



The next meeting of the HACC Commission will be on Sept. 27, 3 p.m. at the
offices of the Housing Authority at 205 W. Park in downtown Champaign.



-- 
Brian Dolinar, Ph.D.
303 W. Locust St.
Urbana, IL 61801
briandolinar at gmail.com
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