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Chicago Tribune
04-05-2025
- General
- Chicago Tribune
Valparaiso leaders pledge to clergy and community to take steps toward more affordable housing
In a sanctuary full of supporters Saturday afternoon, a consortium of faith leaders secured public promises from city and government officials from Valparaiso to take concrete steps to solve the city's affordable housing problem. The Porter County Chapter of We Make Indiana nearly filled the pews at Christ Lutheran Church. Attendees listened to local statistics and testimonials and then heard from Valparaiso City Administrator Bill Oeding, as well as remarks from Valparaiso City Council President Ellen Kapitan, D-At-large, and Council Members Robert Cotton, D-2nd, and Emilie Hunt, D-At-large. It was the second public event held by We Make Indiana, which aims to bring people of faith and conscience together with public officials to make communities safe, healthy, and whole. A variety of pastors set the tone with opening remarks and Greg Arthur of Duneland Community Church in Chesterton did so with excerpts from Jeremiah 29 which tells the faithful to 'build houses and settle down.' With historically low housing inventory, high interest rates and skyrocketing inflation, that's no easy order at any economic strata but the shelter landscape for the working class is particularly hostile in Valparaiso, participants reported. Sonia Fabbri, of Duneland Community Church, said the average two-bedroom apartment rents for $1200 per month in the state of Indiana. To afford that within standard budgeting guidelines she said a person would need to earn $22 per hour, but the average Indiana renter earns $18 per hour. 'Quite a gap,' she said, before adding that the average renter in Valparaiso pays up to $900 more per month than that state average. Social worker Serena Fugate shared her own housing struggles as an example. The single mother said she's lived in Valparaiso for 30 years, some of which were spent homeless when her son was a toddler. 'Yes, we had a place to sleep, but it varied by the day,' she said. 'I carried so much shame around with me.' She said they lived in hotels for years while she struggled to save enough for the first and last months' rent plus a security deposit. When she finally got them into housing she struggled to keep them there and often went to bed hungry. 'Throughout my son's life I always worked two jobs, but I still could not provide for our needs,' Fugate said. She said a 700-square-foot apartment that was $635 in the 2010s now rents for $1100 per month. 'I still struggle,' she said of her current rent of $1400 per month. 'I did everything that I was told would get me out of poverty – went to school, worked two jobs always, got a master's – and still can't afford housing in Valpo.' Grandmother Mary Michna, a 78-year-old member of Christ Lutheran Church, said that come August, she'll have been on a waiting list for affordable senior housing for three years. 'Aging in place is a great thing if you can afford it,' she said, 'but some will need to downsize.' She spoke of a fellow senior who sleeps in the living room of his two-story home because he can't get to the second-level bedrooms and can't afford to move. Their stories are all too familiar to Center Township Trustee Jesse Harper who said, 'Above and beyond, more of what we provide is assistance with housing.' On Wednesday he said he had a chronically unhoused person in one room of his office and a couple being evicted after a conglomerate bought out their apartment complex and raised the rents in another. 'Oftentimes, we will see 10 people in our office in a day, 15 people in our office in a day, and we might make one win,' Harper said, stressing that if the systemic problem isn't fixed trustees like him will just 'continue triaging.' To that end, 'Things are starting to change,' said Valparaiso City Administrator Bill Oeding, who said he himself struggled to get a mortgage when he moved here in 1980. 'I can tell you, dollar for dollar, what it costs to build a house and it's not cheap. Some of it is government-related.' Several speakers mentioned House Bill 1005 which can provide municipalities funding to support housing infrastructure, such as utility extensions. Municipalities can fast-track their place in the application process when adopting certain zoning requirements. Valparaiso City Council Vice President Emilie Hunt read a statement from Council President Ellen Kapitan in which she invited the public to the Your Home, Your City Symposium at City Hall from 5 to 8 p.m. on May 29. For her own part, like Oeding, Hunt pledged to take actionable steps to solve the housing affordability issue in Valparaiso and meet with We Make Indiana within the next 30 days to help 'those who can't afford a $400,000 starter home. I'm grateful to be on a council that takes actionable steps.' Councilman Robert Cotton also made the pledge. 'If we allow the market to take care of housing we are on the trajectory to become a gated community without the need for gates,' he said.
Yahoo
15-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Valparaiso officials: City can keep ARPA funds used to buy land for now-defunct plans for sports complex
As part of the sweeping controversy over a now-defunct proposal for a data center on Valparaiso's north side, one question that remained after the brouhaha seems to have subsided is whether the city has to pay back the funds from the American Rescue Plan Act that were used for what was initially proposed as a sports and park complex. City officials say no, a point they emphasized during Monday's City Council meeting, which stretched almost five hours and drew hundreds of people to City Hall with concerns about the potential data center. Council President Ellen Kapitan, D-At-large, called the issue a 'red flag' during the council meeting, adding it led to a lot of questions, including whether the city would be on the hook for repaying the funds. 'Is this legal?' she asked Patrick Lyp, the city attorney. 'The simple answer is yes,' he said, adding an outside law firm from Indianapolis helped the city work through the details. If the Redevelopment Commission sells the property, he said, 'there would be no prohibition or covenant on the money.' The funds, he added, would return to the RDC. The tenets of ARPA funding offer exemptions for paybacks of funds under $10 million, as long as they are used for public purposes, Lyp said. There also is no prohibition on the sale or use of the property. 'There's no obligation that would be tied to ARPA funds,' said Councilman Robert Cotton, D-2nd. The city received $7,681,979.52, according to an amended resolution for ARPA spending passed by the City Council on July 25, 2022. That included $4,717,278.92 for land acquisition 'for future Park related activities,' according to the resolution, and includes the parcels for the proposed sports complex. The breakdown on the use of the rest of the funding, according to the resolution, included $1 million for the demolition of the former Whispering Pines facility and two adjacent residential structures on North Calumet Avenue, as well as site remediation, for a then-proposed adult enrichment center; $663,147.68 in premium pay for eligible city employees; $575,000 for several nonprofit agencies; $500,000 for the replacement of sidewalks, walking paths and other infrastructure; $40,000 for consultant fees and reserve funds for future audits, all related to disbursement of the ARPA funds; and $25,000 each to the police and fire departments, for various upgrades. The brunt of the spending, including the parkland purchase, fell under ARPA's 'Provision of Governmental Services using Revenue Loss Funds,' per the council's resolution, which is the most flexible of categories for ARPA spending. In emails to the Post-Tribune before the City Council meeting and Mayor Jon Costas' statement that the city would no longer pursue the data center proposal because of the public outcry, Lyp and George Douglas, the city's development director, offered further insight into the transfer of funds before the 248 acres, comprised of four parcels between County Roads 500 North and 400 North east of Indiana 49, was purchased for parkland. According to the option agreement signed in January between the RDC and the data center developer, Agincourt Investments LLC, the RDC would have sold 180 acres of that property for just over $9 million, almost twice what the RDC paid for the land. 'The Valparaiso Redevelopment purchased the properties in 2022 with available cash funds. The City Council did approve the use of ARPA funds to reimburse the RDC for the full purchase price in August of 2022,' Douglas said in his email. He added he didn't believe anything happens to the ARPA funds once they have been used to reimburse the RDC for the land purchase and if the RDC were to sell the property, the commission could use the proceeds for any of its permissible expenditures. 'The ARPA funds were used for an allowed purpose when the City reimbursed the RDC,' Lyp said in his email. 'If the land is sold, the proceeds would be paid to the RDC and used by the RDC consistent with Indiana law.' Jennifer Hora, a political science professor at Valparaiso University who focuses on state and local government, agreed that the ARPA funds come with flexibility but said that flexibility is supposed to come with accountability and responsibility. She summed up her concerns as 'the spirit of the law vs. the letter of the law.' City officials dropped the plans for the park when, according to then-Mayor Matt Murphy, bids for the project, slated for $30 million, came in $7 million over budget. Costas said in an interview with the Post-Tribune last month that the city was going to invest more in its current parks instead and scuttle the plans for the sports complex. City officials, Hora said, 'threw their hands up' and walked away from the sports complex proposal when it came in over budget and proposed using that land for the data center. The future of the land purchased with those funds is unknown. 'This is not transparency,' she said. 'This is definitely not the spirit of ARPA law.' alavalley@
Chicago Tribune
15-03-2025
- Business
- Chicago Tribune
Valparaiso officials: City can keep ARPA funds used to buy land for now-defunct plans for sports complex
As part of the sweeping controversy over a now-defunct proposal for a data center on Valparaiso's north side, one question that remained after the brouhaha seems to have subsided is whether the city has to pay back the funds from the American Rescue Plan Act that were used for what was initially proposed as a sports and park complex. City officials say no, a point they emphasized during Monday's City Council meeting, which stretched almost five hours and drew hundreds of people to City Hall with concerns about the potential data center. Council President Ellen Kapitan, D-At-large, called the issue a 'red flag' during the council meeting, adding it led to a lot of questions, including whether the city would be on the hook for repaying the funds. 'Is this legal?' she asked Patrick Lyp, the city attorney. 'The simple answer is yes,' he said, adding an outside law firm from Indianapolis helped the city work through the details. If the Redevelopment Commission sells the property, he said, 'there would be no prohibition or covenant on the money.' The funds, he added, would return to the RDC. The tenets of ARPA funding offer exemptions for paybacks of funds under $10 million, as long as they are used for public purposes, Lyp said. There also is no prohibition on the sale or use of the property. 'There's no obligation that would be tied to ARPA funds,' said Councilman Robert Cotton, D-2nd. The city received $7,681,979.52, according to an amended resolution for ARPA spending passed by the City Council on July 25, 2022. That included $4,717,278.92 for land acquisition 'for future Park related activities,' according to the resolution, and includes the parcels for the proposed sports complex. The breakdown on the use of the rest of the funding, according to the resolution, included $1 million for the demolition of the former Whispering Pines facility and two adjacent residential structures on North Calumet Avenue, as well as site remediation, for a then-proposed adult enrichment center; $663,147.68 in premium pay for eligible city employees; $575,000 for several nonprofit agencies; $500,000 for the replacement of sidewalks, walking paths and other infrastructure; $40,000 for consultant fees and reserve funds for future audits, all related to disbursement of the ARPA funds; and $25,000 each to the police and fire departments, for various upgrades. The brunt of the spending, including the parkland purchase, fell under ARPA's 'Provision of Governmental Services using Revenue Loss Funds,' per the council's resolution, which is the most flexible of categories for ARPA spending. In emails to the Post-Tribune before the City Council meeting and Mayor Jon Costas' statement that the city would no longer pursue the data center proposal because of the public outcry, Lyp and George Douglas, the city's development director, offered further insight into the transfer of funds before the 248 acres, comprised of four parcels between County Roads 500 North and 400 North east of Indiana 49, was purchased for parkland. According to the option agreement signed in January between the RDC and the data center developer, Agincourt Investments LLC, the RDC would have sold 180 acres of that property for just over $9 million, almost twice what the RDC paid for the land. 'The Valparaiso Redevelopment purchased the properties in 2022 with available cash funds. The City Council did approve the use of ARPA funds to reimburse the RDC for the full purchase price in August of 2022,' Douglas said in his email. He added he didn't believe anything happens to the ARPA funds once they have been used to reimburse the RDC for the land purchase and if the RDC were to sell the property, the commission could use the proceeds for any of its permissible expenditures. 'The ARPA funds were used for an allowed purpose when the City reimbursed the RDC,' Lyp said in his email. 'If the land is sold, the proceeds would be paid to the RDC and used by the RDC consistent with Indiana law.' Jennifer Hora, a political science professor at Valparaiso University who focuses on state and local government, agreed that the ARPA funds come with flexibility but said that flexibility is supposed to come with accountability and responsibility. She summed up her concerns as 'the spirit of the law vs. the letter of the law.' City officials dropped the plans for the park when, according to then-Mayor Matt Murphy, bids for the project, slated for $30 million, came in $7 million over budget. Costas said in an interview with the Post-Tribune last month that the city was going to invest more in its current parks instead and scuttle the plans for the sports complex. City officials, Hora said, 'threw their hands up' and walked away from the sports complex proposal when it came in over budget and proposed using that land for the data center. The future of the land purchased with those funds is unknown. 'This is not transparency,' she said. 'This is definitely not the spirit of ARPA law.'
