Genesee & Locust: Center of a renaissance?

When the crossroads are referenced, “vibrant” and “desirable” are not the words that come to mind.

They could be, though, and sooner than anyone dared hope.

Inspired by success stories in central New York, Lockport Neighborhood Revitalization Inc. has sprung to life with a proposal to rapidly recover two “lost” blocks of Genesee Street, between Pine and Washburn streets.

LNRI, a not-for-profit company formed by key members of the United Neighborhood Watch Group, is working with a Syracuse-based charity to acquire 15 parcels along Genesee and Locust streets.

Housing Visions has a demonstrated ability to take the decrepit properties, many once-grand single-family homes, and turn them around, physically and spiritually, in short order.

If all goes as planned, a bunch of eyesores along Genesee Street will be blotted out, replaced with vintage-looking apartment houses for tenants who desire a home, not just a place to crash.

Residents could see a community center rise on the vacant stretch of Locust Street between South and Genesee, where Macaluso’s Shoe Repair and a hobby shop burned this past summer.

The city would be the beneficiary of an $8.5 million investment in inner-city rehabilitation, mostly by private money sources.

If it all goes as planned, the principals of LNRI — watch group co-founders Jack and Luisa Smith and Dave and Robin McCowen, all of Waterman Street — will have facilitated a miracle for their long-beseiged neighborhood.

“It’s a win-win for the city and the neighborhood,” Dave McCowen says confidently.

The Housing Visions game plan is development of quality housing in historic-looking homes; the kind of housing that, by its curb appeal and proactive management, attracts a better class of residents.

The Smiths and McCowens believe the kinds of people who’ve given Genesee and its side streets a bad rap — drug dealers and prostitutes, thugs and assorted rowdies — are welcomed into the neighborhood partly by careless rental house owners. The block club has tried repeatedly to impress upon landlords their responsibility to enforce standards of conduct upon among tenants.

To no one’s surprise, many landlords don’t agree. Rental houses are businesses, not reformatories, they might say.

The Housing Visions model upends that mindset. Once it buys and rehabs old houses, the agency has an investment to protect, so who it rents to becomes a calculated business decision.

The hard-and-fast rules of tenancy, summarized: Anybody with a criminal record or an unkempt lifestyle need not apply. Housing Visions developments are depicted as being for law-abiding, stable, working-class folks only; people who, according to the results of rigorous background checking, will respect the property, their neighbors and traditional community values.

Being rid of disruptive residents and repopulated with good neighbors is Genesee’s surest shot at redemption, Robin McCowen asserted.

“It’s not enough to simply drive out (the troublemakers). Then we have to contend with vacant houses,” she said. “The elements are here to sell people on the neighborhood: the architecture, the closeness to downtown. Now we need to make it a great neighborhood, ‘the’ place to be. ... We want to cultivate a new mindset: Who wouldn’t want to live here?”

Housing Visions has a solid reputation

Since the mid 1990s, Housing Visions has invested $153 million in housing in seven central New York cities. It rehabbed or built 174 houses containing 525 living units in Syracuse, Auburn, Utica, Cortland and Binghamton; and has another 54 buildings/223 units under construction now in Syracuse, Oswego and Rome.

The agency applies for New York State low-income housing tax credits and sells them to raise cash for construction. According to its Web site, some projects also receive loans from the state and assistance from their host municipalities.

Housing Visions’ mission is to supply good housing for low- and moderate-income households. Section 8 (rent subsidy) recipients are welcome, but most units are occupied by the working poor, Jack Smith said.

Developments consist of rehabbed and/or new structures built in the styles of the old neighborhoods they’re in. Housing Visions has its own construction company and uses high-quality, durable materials that lend authenticity to its designs. When new houses are erected, Dave McCowen said, “they look like they’ve always been there.”

The agency’s commitment to historic aesthetics appears impressive. According to Kevin McDonough, rehabilitation coordinator for the City of Lockport, when agency officials did a walk-through of the Genesee Street area, they were escorted by state historic preservation officials who helped suggest which structures should be saved or torn down and how fixtures/materials of the ones slated for demolition could be recycled in new construction.

McDonough, a frequent traveler to Cortland, has made a point of looking over Housing Visions’ work there.

“The quality of the work is outstanding,” he said. “They’ve won awards from the Preservation League of New York State ... for some of the work they’ve done.”

The Cortland project involved rehabbing buildings on Main Street at the edge of the central business district. McDonough said he thinks a Lockport project could be “even better” because it’s focused on a neighborhood leading to downtown.

Development paradigm an answer to prayers?

Robin McCowen gets credit for “finding” Housing Visions, as she researched block clubs, blight and related topics online for the newly formed United Neighborhood Watch Group. What she read was intriguing, so she contacted Housing Visions for more information.

President Kenyon M. Craig not only returned McCowen’s phone call personally, he invited her to come to Syracuse and see for herself what Housing Visions does. McCowen, her husband and the Smiths made the trip together and toured an agency-rehabbed neighborhood that bore some of the same characteristics and history as theirs.

From news reports and conversations with agency officials, the Waterman Street neighbors had been cautiously optimistic Housing Visions could point them in the right direction as they searched for ways to improve the area.

Their tour of the transformed Syracuse neighborhood ended up being “a jaw dropper,” Robin said.

“These houses are so well maintained, they look as good 10 years later as they did when they were first done,” Dave said. “We saw properties next to (Housing Visions holdings) that were just as beautiful and well-kept. ... The bar was raised for the whole neighborhood. Once Housing Visions came in and did what it did, everybody else started keeping up with the Joneses.”

“That was the clincher,” Luisa Smith said of the tour. “Homeowners finally had an incentive to invest (in property upkeep).”

Jack Smith, who also is the city’s 2nd Ward alderman-elect, said initially he suspected the Housing Visions story was “almost too good to be true” and wondered about the possible downsides of inviting the agency into Lockport.

If a non-local company took over so many properties, would local control over them be relinquished? Would outsiders with strict policies be imposing a vision on his neighborhood and the city?

In a series of question-and-answer sessions between agency officials, city officials and local resident activists, Smith said he couldn’t come up with any real negatives.

Housing Visions typically partners with local development groups — hence the formation of Lockport Neighborhood Revitalization Inc., which will have a 0.5 percent ownership interest, and its board members a say, in the Genesee-Locust development. And because it’s accepting state money, Housing Visions is obligated to retain ownership of acquired properties for a minimum of 15 years. The commitments it makes can thus be called long-term.

The Housing Visions paradigm, using quality housing to drive neighborhood revitalization, seems to answer the prayers of local homeowners who want to feel the neighborhood is “theirs,” not the criminal element’s. That it’s prepared to buy 15 parcels and improve them all at once speaks to their desire for a radical change in the neighborhood.

In the past, Luisa Smith thought about forming a local association that could buy one or two troubled properties and try turning them around. Apart from the difficulty of raising the cash, she said, in the end a one-here, one-there strategy seemed like spitting into the wind. It might take forever to make a difference.

Housing Visions projects create “critical mass,” Jack Smith said. “There aren’t bad people in every house on Genesee, but there’s a perception, and perception often is reality. Change the perception and change reality.”

City getting on board with the Vision

Housing Visions is set to present concept plans to the city planning board on Christmas week for rehab/construction on 15 parcels. The Common Council already waived the fees that an applicant normally would pay to meet with the planning and zoning boards. How many site plans ultimately will be presented isn’t yet known, according to Building Inspector Jason Dool. The parcels are not all contiguous.

Housing Visions executives were not available to speak about Lockport project specifics last week. Of the 15 lots, Jack Smith said, 10 are marked for new construction. That doesn’t mean 10 new buildings will be built, however. Where it’s feasible, some lots will be joined to make room for amenities including green space and parking.

Two of the parcels that Housing Visions has tentatively closed on are city-held after being seized for unpaid taxes in 2008. One is 151 Genesee, a 95-year-old, red brick house that the city declined to auction out of concern for how it would be occupied. The other is the vacant lot at the Genesee-Waterman Street “T” where United Neighborhood Watch Group recently finished planting a community memorial garden.

Mayor Michael Tucker counts himself among Housing Visions supporters. In early talks with LNRI and agency officials he was hesitant, because of the possibility the agency would want tax breaks on its holdings, but he said his doubts were erased after he toured a Syracuse project.

“These properties are beautifully restored, immaculately landscaped; they don’t tolerate any (tenant) nonsense. ... We’re very lucky to have them here,” Tucker said. “They can probably flip that whole neighborhood in 20 to 24 months. It’d take us 20 years.”

Tucker and Jack Smith both said Housing Visions will pursue some sort of a payment-in-lieu-of-taxes package for the proposed Genesee-Locust development. It’ll be aimed at cutting, but not eliminating, property taxes on the improved properties, they said.

“Some properties are non-paying now. (Housing Visions) would pay some tax every year,” Smith added. “They’ll need 2 to 3 years to start making some money.”

The Genesee-Locust development is not a done deal. The agency will apply for the low-income housing tax credits in February and won’t get an answer until August 2010. The project won’t happen without the tax credits, Tucker said, “but they’ve got such a good track record, I don’t think anyone’s too concerned.”

Local residents will get their first look at the proposed project(s) when the planning board meets Dec. 21 and the zoning board meets Dec. 22, both in special sessions called for Housing Visions exclusively.

There will be other opportunities for the public to examine and weigh in on the plan, Smith said. LNRI board members will host at least one public meeting in January, in part to give residents to suggest any negatives they didn’t think of.

“Community support is vital. If there is a downside that we’ve missed, point it out, please,” Smith said.

“But if you do, please also be prepared to suggest a solution,” Dave McCowen added.

“Enough complaining,” Robin McCowen said. “Let’s get something done.”