- So we're all here because we want to say Seminary Point. You all heard the call and you answered it.
- A little bit about us before we begin. My name is Bryce Green. I'm an organizer with Democratic Social
- South America. I've been organizing for about eight years. And I'm also a graduate student, a graduate
- union organizer at Indiana University. I'll pass this off to Sarah.
- Hello, I'm Sarah St. John Wolbert and I am the Housing Solutions Director at Habitat for Humanity. I
- bring over a decade of construction experience to this project and I am honored to be presenting to
- you today as a Bloomington Homes for All volunteer. My name is Matthew Joseph. I'm a resident of Bloomington
- and a member of Bloomington Homes for All. I'm currently a therapist at Centerstone.
- But my previous life was in entrepreneurship and business. I got a degree from Kelly and ran a few of
- my own businesses over the last decade. So it's very heartening to see so many people here to show up,
- you know, municipal policy meeting. But I mean, that's kind of one of the reasons why I've stuck around
- in Wilmington. The community is excellent. They're engaged. And there's always some people doing something
- to try and make it a little bit better.
- So give yourselves a round of applause. That's the first step. OK, so a little bit about how
- this presentation is going to go. We're going to be talking about Seminary Point, property, what makes
- it important, and how it relates to preserving old blooming, this cultural feeling that you all know
- and love, and how it relates to the housing and commercial crises that we're facing right now, we all
- know about them, and how our plan will mitigate and address these crises.
- And the solution that we hope to talk to you about is about a cooperative nonprofit model. We'll be
- talking a bit about that. And of course, deconstruction and financials, proving that we have done the
- due diligence to make sure this project is feasible and the numbers work. And then we'll be wrapping
- up our vision and the next steps that the decision makers and policymakers can take to make sure that
- we can save seminary pointing. All right.
- So who are we? Who are we? We are Bloomington Homes for All. We're a collection of advocates in Bloomington,
- Indiana. We are Bloomington Homes for All. We are all volunteers here. And we've tapped in with a national
- network, the National Homes for All group. They're all dedicated to supporting policies and supporting
- advocates who are pushing for affordable housing.
- not only taking our local expertise, but we're also getting this national expertise to put together
- to make this thing happen. And on the local level, we built a, quite the coalition of groups, Avalon
- Community Land Trust, and we're gonna talk a bit more about how they fit into all this. Bloomington
- Cooperative Living, some people live there, some people in this room live there, including myself. NASCO
- Properties, which is the North American Students of Cooperation, they're a properties division,
- They have, we've been in contact with them and have been getting some support on that front. And then
- Democratic Socialist of America, a local activist group that's pushing for making housing a human right.
- And the policies necessary to realize that right. And so we do quite the coalition. And the team on
- the ground has been working on this. It's about 20 people who have been meeting multiple times a week
- to talk about these issues about significant points, to talk through the politics, to talk through the policy
- And they're together, they kind of form a mosaic of experience, construction experience, business experience,
- finance experience, government experience, you know, organizing experience. And there's a great group
- of people. And honestly, if you have done anything to help with Bloomington Homes for All, if you want
- to, please raise your hand. Yeah. All right.
- Give yourselves a round of applause. So what is Seminary Point? Seminary Point is that property just
- north of the downtown Kroger at the corner of Second and College. It's home to four buildings. Two of
- them are mixed use developments. One of them is fully residential and one of them is fully commercial.
- And it's also near the Hopewell development. It's Caddy Corner.
- to this new affordable housing development that's going up there. So if our plan actually complements
- this other plan that's been going on. And it's also a critical piece of real estate. Not only is it
- downtown, but it sits actually on the B line. And so it's part of a critical, one of the most nice trails
- in Wilmington, one of the critical walkways and pedestrian traffic centers. So it's a really important
- hub of real estate.
- And the commercial spaces include My Sister's Closet, Blue Tip, Friendly Beast, Jess Warehouse, and
- formerly Artisan Alley. I mean, how many of you guys have been to these businesses, right? Like, there's
- almost everybody. It really underscores why it's so important to save. But a lot of people don't know
- that this facility also includes 29 units of super affordable housing.
- And when we say super affordable, we mean it. I mean, the rents there are between $400 and $700 a month.
- I challenge you to find it if you're remotely close to that downtown in that location, or really anywhere
- in Wilmington. But right now, there are 17 current residents, including the commercial tenants. And
- the leases are set to be ended on August 31. Now, originally, these leases were set to end on July 7.
- The whole fraud group has been working. We've been pushing. We've been advocating. And after months
- of work, the leases were extended to August 31. So that's a very positive development. So yeah, I mean,
- these buildings are really nice. It's also the location where we had the block party. I'm going to keep
- asking people to raise their hands. How many people were at the block party? Yeah? It was a good time.
- It was a good time. And we raised. We smashed our fundraising goal, which was excellent. So thank you
- all for your help.
- We also have the full residential building with eight units. Now, unfortunately, we looked at the,
- you know, the structural assessments of these and talked to contractors, and this is the only building
- that is not salvageable in the long term. There's been a lot of talk about, oh, seminary, why are you
- saving seminary coin? These building, this building, people think of it as one building. You know, it's
- not even structurally sound.
- But three out of the four buildings are, and there's only one that is not. We'll be talking more about
- that in the construction section. And yeah, then there's My Sister's Closet. This venue has been serving
- Bloomington women for quite a bit of time. And then there's Jess Warehouse. Get a picture of Jess. Yeah,
- Jess Warehouse, Blue Tip, and also has six residential units here.
- So this is a pretty important part. And as we can see in the room, a lot of you guys have enjoyed these
- businesses and services and agree that they would have disappeared. So what's the situation with Seminary
- Point? Right now, Seminary Point is owned by something called the Capital Improvement Board, the CIB.
- The CIB is an intergovernmental body made up of county appointees and city appointees. But they have
- one job, and it's to develop the convention center.
- a big convention center that's going up right down the street, and associated projects with it. They
- own Seminary Point because they want to build what's called a host hotel, a hotel that will be mostly
- linked to the operations and function of the convention center so that people can book whole blocks
- of places. They need a hotel to make the convention center work. But they all seem to agree that the
- best spot for a hotel is actually this other place.
- College Square. I mean, you guys know where College Square is. It's right across the street from the
- Atlas Bar. It's right at the corner of 4th and College. And so this building is, this property is actually
- vacant. There's no one who uses this building. And it's just a big parking lot. And the parking lot
- is only being used right now for staging for the convention center. So the CIB members, the
- Most of the city planners, they agree that this would be the ideal location for a host hotel, which
- raises the question, why are they building it at Seminary Point? Well, currently, the elsewhere is owned
- by the city's redevelopment commission, the RDC. This body's made up of three mayoral appointees and
- two city council appointees, and they manage the city's inventory of properties for the purpose of directing
- and having a steady hand
- over Bloomington's development pad. So they can make deals with developers who want to use these properties
- for the betterment of Bloomington. But they own College Square. So why have there been some sort of
- repealment? That's a long question. There's actually a very long history of this. A seminary point was
- actually purchased by the county back in 2010.
- when I was 12 years old. Yeah, and it's been held for 15 years. It was held by the Commission Center
- Development Corporation. One of the reasons that this area has been able to stay affordable is that
- it was taken out of this private landlord market, and it was actually run by a state body. And they
- deferred maintenance because they felt like they were going to be destroying it any day now for 15 years.
- But all this meant that there was little upward pressure on the race. And so it was kind of about the
- accidental socialism on the calendar. We need more intentional. So that was the state of affairs for
- quite some time. The Capital Improvement Board, the CIV, you might be overwhelmed with the acronyms
- here. There are quite a few.
- but hopefully this slide will help guide you. But the CID has been asking the RDC to swap that land
- for a while, but the RDC has refused because of concerns about the relative values of these properties.
- The College Square property is appraised at a higher value, was purchased at a higher cost than the
- cost that was used to purchase the Seminary Point property. And so city officials were concerned that
- by swapping properties of such different values, it would actually be a major subsidy to the Good Vision
- Center outside of the food and beverage tax that was designed to service the Good Vision Center. Which
- is a totally understandable state of affairs, totally understandable position. But I think many of you
- guys have seen over the last few months, just a few weeks ago, the city council actually voted unanimously
- to support a letter to the RBC saying that they
- have less concern about the subsidy if that was going to be used for affordable housing. And recently,
- actually, the mayor came out. This was actually a few days ago. We were very excited to see this. Mayor
- Perry Thompson came out and said that she was interested in finding a way to support or to save St.
- Mary Point and preserve it as affordable housing. So these are all extremely positive developments.
- One of the holdups
- is that the CID believes that given all the negotiations that were rejected in the past, that the burden
- is no longer on them to submit a response to the RDC's proposal for College Square. And that's their
- position. And the RDC has said, well, the only way that you're going to get this property is if you
- go to the proposal. So there's kind of a stalemate there. So Wilmington Homes for All is proposing a
- solution that
- It kind of meets these two groups' interests where they intersect. We're proposing that the CIB actually
- does submit a proposal to the RDC. But it's not at that $7 million price point that they had. It's a
- sale or a proposal to receive College Square at a nominal fee on the condition that the CIB transfer
- seminary points into a nonprofit cooperative tasked with preserving the long-term affordability of the property.
- And then we hope that the RDC accept this proposal. And we actually have found a community developer,
- a community land trust that is willing to receive the property if this plan goes through, the Avalon
- Community Land Trust, ACLT. And so this is what we're proposing, you know. It's basically a land swap
- minus some steps, maybe a little bit more. It's essentially a land swap.
- So these are all the key stakeholders that are in this, and hopefully this will help, you know, relieve
- you of the anxiety and have to keep track of all of these different sorts of community bodies,
- city bodies, and their abbreviations. But that's what we're proposing. So without a solution, we might
- end up in a situation where there are actually two hotels developed. Someone buys a college square to
- develop a hotel, and someone also gets seminary point to develop a hotel.
- In any case, the businesses, the tenants, the community spaces there, that would be a lottery. No more
- friendly beasts, no more units of affordable housing, no more of that, just a hotel. And I think that
- many of us in this room and many policy makers agree that this is less than the ideal outcome that we
- want. So I'm going to pass it off to Sarah to talk a little bit about why seminary point is so important.
- Thank you, Bryce.
- So why should our community care? I'm a lifelong resident born and raised here in Wilmington. Saving
- Seminary Point, as Bryce mentioned, keeps the community space thriving. It is a block away from Hopewell
- where 35 affordable units are going in. If we demolish 29 units of affordable housing less than a block
- away from that, what have we really gained as a community?
- The hotel should go on the land that is currently a vacant building and a parking lot. It's closer to
- the convention center and Seminary Point can then continue to be affordable housing, commercial, and
- community space. I want to take a minute to acknowledge the inspiring history that Wilmington has of
- saving and preserving spaces. McDowell Gardens' neighborhood was going to be torn down for hospital
- expansion. The courthouse was going to be demolished until Charlotte Zetlow and other organizers saved
- it. The Busker Chumley and the John Waldron's Art Center required extensive repairs in order to become
- the gems they are today. We are honored to be taking up the mantle to preserve
- this generation's first preservation project, Seminary Point. There is a certain charm that has been
- eroding in Bloomington. It is especially evident in this area. We have lost the players' pub and rhinos,
- and although the chocolate mousse is still there, the character of the building has lost some of its
- charm by being converted into one of these large box buildings.
- interested in bringing spaces like Rhinos back. We don't want Seminary Point to fall victim to the same
- outcome as the Players Hub and Rhinos. I want to briefly zoom out and talk about some of the larger
- trends that are affecting Wilmington. If you have recently tried to find a place to rent or a home to purchase,
- then you understand and don't need to be lectured that we are in an affordability crisis. The average
- rent for a one-bedroom in Bloomington is $1,100 a month. That is $400 more a month than what we plan
- to charge at Seminary Point. In our research, we have found that the most affordable housing is cooperative housing.
- In red, you see the median rent of a one-bedroom in the United States. And in blue, you see Bloomington
- Community Living's Middle Earth rent space, or rent price. There has also been a drastic increase in
- commercial rent. It has especially increased in the last five years.
- Businesses are leaving and having to close because of these increased costs and poor property management.
- Beloved spaces like the Trojan horse and orbit room and fat dance and cup and kettle are leaving. And
- we don't want to add blue tip and friendly beasts and Jeff's warehouse to that list. We are part of
- future community leaders in Bloomington.
- Our town's population is decreasing, especially among the 25 to 50 year old range. Our group is predominantly
- made up of this vanishing demographic that is vital to the cultural and economic success of Bloomington.
- When people can't afford to live here, they can't afford to work here. And that affects our tax base.
- This isn't just about housing. It is about economic development and sustainability. For those who read
- the Herald Times, this is the issue that John Fernandez has been writing about. We aren't just young
- people complaining about the hurdles we see. We are working hard to find solutions.
- My parents bought a house in Bryant Park neighborhood in the 1990s for $32,000. Does anyone know what
- $32,000 is equivalent to today? Your threat. Accounting for inflation is $81,000. Does anyone know of
- a decent house in good condition?
- That's for sale for $81,000. If you do, please talk to me after the presentation. Last year, a block
- away from that house, a single lot sold for $105,000. That is a vacant, empty lot without any home on
- it. Single-family homes are no longer attainable for my generation.
- I appreciate that for the majority of decision makers, our group is made up of people around the ages
- of your children. I encourage you, though, to look at us as your former selves. Gary Thompson was in
- her late 20s when she became CEO of Habitat. Jane St. John was in her 20s when she implemented citywide
- recycling. John Fernandez became mayor when he was 35.
- If you have questions about our experience, ask us and help support us. We want to work with you and
- learn from your experience. So please don't cut us out. Are you willing to collaborate with the next
- generation of community leaders? Now that we've talked about the inspiring past, I'm gonna hand it over
- to Matthew to talk about the future.
- There's real problems that we're talking about. And again, just really appreciate everyone being here
- for this. So when we think about the future of Seminary Point, we envision a cooperative model being
- at the base of this. OK, so there's a few key terms here that I want to talk about. The first one is
- a community land trust. There's two right now in Bloomington. So for example, it's Summit Hill and then
- Avalon Community Land Trust, which is the one that we mentioned. We already have a partnership.
- So community land trust is an ownership model where the owner of the land is a non-profit trust. So
- what this looks like is, in the case of what Sarah's family had mentioned, is that if you were to have
- a house 20 years ago, that would have been considered affordable. And you look at how the value of that
- property increases, or has increased over the last 20 years, let's say,
- that same exact house would be unaffordable to the people that bought it in the first place. So something
- that was affordable, people are now getting priced out because of how market dynamics work and speculation
- works with increasing of the land value over so much time that people are priced out of the things that
- were originally affordable. And so community land trusts ensure that the ownership of the land
- and that the values of it retain affordable over generations to come. So we can't just talk
- about affordability in terms of today's standards, because speculation will pull us out of that. Models
- like this keep us keeping affordability for a very long time. For example, there's one in Athens, Georgia,
- which is an incredibly successful model. One that's just to show you that this is not just happening
- in beautiful Bloomington. This is happening
- all across the country, and then we're not also the first ones to do this. Incredibly successful land
- trust, so much here, and they've been able to not only create new jobs in their community and retain
- the nature and the preservation of their ecology on this land, but also maintaining the affordable housing
- on that land that they are creating, like I said, for generations to come. Okay.
- So the other piece there, so we talked about land trust. That is the owner of the land that, let's say
- for example, we'll send my point, is on. Now on top of that, we believe that there should be a cooperative.
- Okay, what's a cooperative? It is an organizational structure that is governed and owned by the members
- that make it up. Okay, who's heard of a cooperative? Amazing, thank you. Thank you for knowing,
- this is good, this is great.
- Not to over explain, but there's three key pieces here. Democratic decision making. Each member has
- a vote for the housing that they're in. Or whatever the co-op might be, which I'll explain. Also community
- reinvestment. So the money that is put into it, maybe for rent prices, et cetera, is put back into the
- non-profit and not necessarily in the hands of typically wealthier investors. So it puts the money into
- the hands of the community, into the people,
- that make up that land. And so we're able to prioritize the needs of those people because they're also
- the ones that are voting for the decisions in the first place. So the decision makers are the ones that
- are affected by the decisions that they make. And so it creates a beautiful incentive. I'm just gonna
- skip and go to that really quickly. There's two part incentive to a cooperative, right? To keep it affordable
- because you yourself are a member of that cooperative.
- And then the other side, it's to also keep it beautiful and well maintained. Because you live there,
- you have a commercial business there, and you're an owner of it. You feel like you own the thing. Because
- decisions are made by the very people affected by those decisions. I'll come back to that slide. I'm
- just having a good time. And I want to tell if I could, I don't want to take too much time. A lot of
- y'all know what a co-op group is. Actually, I'll tell this when I get to the VC office. That's a personal story.
- But, so, oh, we're here. I wish they were coming. Okay, so, Bloomington Cooperative Blooming is the
- most successful form of super affordable housing in Bloomington. I pay, in Trellis on next year, right
- across from the community garden, big, beautiful house, I pay $399 a month for rent.
- Give me that. I didn't do much. One member. One member. Give me only one. OK. So this did not just show
- up for me in a time that I needed, which right now I'm in grad school for mental health counseling,
- currently getting paid minimum wage as a therapy intern. So I need this to live and serve the people
- most vulnerable in Bloomington. But this came at a time for me.
- When, so about two years ago, I was in a granite apartment. You guys know granite apartment? The apartment
- complex. Well, you know, they're here. I'm the co-ops people. So I lived in granite. I was paying about,
- you know, probably $7.50 a month at the time. Not bad, I could do that. And that was right at the time
- in my life where I was just graduating from college.
- and I was entering into that abyss time after you leave college and you're trying to find community,
- and I was also starting a business in Bloomington at the exact same time. I was an entrepreneur at the
- time. And that is, think about this, okay? So, and when I got my lease for the next year, it was $200
- more than what I had paid that year. I was priced out of my own apartment that I lived in.
- And so I looked everywhere else, I couldn't find a place to live. And so for an entire year, I was just
- bouncing around on three month subleases somewhere under the table. Like literally just to afford to
- live here. And that was at a time, so this is what I say, is the most unstable time in my entire life.
- Mentally, emotionally, and to also be thinking about running a business.
- You know, that's already such an unstable thing as well. To not have the housing is a really important
- piece. I need that stability. And at the end of that year, I found out about limited cooperative living
- from a good friend of mine. And that was what enabled me to be able to afford to live here, as well
- as be able to confidently say to you all that limited cooperative living and the cooperative model changed
- my life in ways I cannot describe. Gave me a community to be around.
- I don't mean to just say it in tough stories, but my whole family, oh God. My whole family, I went to
- Kelly, you think I should know how to do this. I went to Kelly, sorry, I went to Kelly. My whole family
- is from Syria in the Middle East, okay? When I hear stories of my mom living in Beishpat in Syria, she
- lived in a cooperative living arrangement.
- And the situation was it was a small little building that her, her aunts, her uncles, her grandparents
- all lived in this little area. She never felt alone. That year, when I was bouncing around places, I
- have never felt more alone in my entire life. And so when I found a community where I could wake up
- and I hear the footsteps of my roommates, I loved that.
- It's my genes, this is who I am. This is like, you wanna bring more diversity to Bloomington, you gotta
- make it happen. That's community. This is other countries think about things in this way, especially
- not in the West. And so this gave me the opportunity to do that. And so I'm gonna stop on BCL,
- I love them. I mean, decisions made, weekly, et cetera, I feel so a part of this thing. And honestly,
- the last thing I'll say is I didn't care about politics before I lived here.
- Because I only could think individualistically. I could only think about making my own life. And the
- second that somebody asked me, hey, Matthew, walk around the house and find projects to work on.
- Get outside, dude. I was like, you're asking me to get involved in the land that I live in? With my
- genes like that? You think that'd be natural? This is creating, this model doesn't just create cool
- housing and affordable housing. It does that incredibly well. But it also creates collectivists.
- It creates people who are thinking communally about their world and want to push this forward into the
- world. No more on that. There's more models, okay? Common Grounds is one, I'll relate that here. So
- there's a multi-stakeholder cooperative where the commercial businesses, the residential tenants, and
- community members all as stakeholders in this model.
- And this is incredible. They built local jobs, they built community spaces, they built commercial businesses
- and non-profits all in one building. So, the Centerpoint Cooperative, right, all that passion that y'all
- got, okay, putting into the Centerpoint Co-op. So, we want to model this off of the common grounds model.
- Multi-stakeholder, because that is already what it is. Okay, we're building cooperative with what already
- exists on it.
- So we'll have key stakeholders, the commercial tenants, the residential tenants, and community members.
- You can imagine similar to the bee foods for the community members, where you can actually get engaged
- on an ownership level with the people that you're buying from or the people, the cousins that you know
- that live there, et cetera. And then a board of directors that's elected by the stakeholders themselves.
- So again, I talked about a lot of this, but it really, to focus here, it ensures the stability of the
- affordability of the land, right? So that people like me, the business owners, don't have to be worried
- about what their rent next year is gonna look like. So that the residential tenants don't have to worry
- about what their rent is gonna look like. So maintaining that stability is a part of it. And
- then responsibility. Because when you, like I said, when you take ownership, it becomes yours.
- and you get to envision what the whole thing's gonna look like. I never for a second thought about what
- Greenwich Apartments is gonna look like in Wilmington. But now, look at me, this is crazy.
- I get to envision, this is the youth that said what was talking about, I get to envision what this whole
- city could look like, and in a small way what Seven-Eight Point could look like, because this form of
- living has encouraged me to think in that way. So, who actually owned the land?
- Outlaw Community Land Trust, we talked about that. They're already doing this in limited and doing it
- really well. We want to just continue with that thread. And then Cooler Management Land is a seven-way
- point cooperative with our confirmed development partner, Nazco Properties, who has been doing this
- exact same thing across the entire country for the last 40 years, building co-ops in different forms
- and models of co-ops. And I think with their partnership,
- we can make this very successful. So our team, we talk about a lot of this, we have construction experience
- on the team. We have financial business experience on the team. Look at that pro forma. It's good, it's
- even good. The cooperation team, which has years of co-op experience, and then community outreach team.
- I mean, in terms of our consultants, we have lenders as consultants. We have people that are actively
- engaged in the nonprofit space that have had decades of living here and willing to understand the dynamics.
- of people that have a co-op experience for decades, decades building co-ops that we see in Bloomington,
- an inspired community engagement like this. And then people have heard about this across the country.
- We had a person that said, I want to fly out and come see Seminary Point to see what's going on, because
- we heard about what's happening. And it was like, oh, I'd love to be a consultant. It's like,
- that's amazing. We have an opportunity to be an inspiration
- with our consultants. And so I'll pass it back to Sarah. Thank you all. Thank you. All right. So I'm
- going to talk a little bit more about myself, my favorite topic. So I bring over a decade of construction
- experience to the Bloomington Seminary Point project.
- I worked for Habitat for Humanity, and as I mentioned earlier, I'm the Housing Solutions Director. I've
- been there for four years, three of which I was Construction Site Supervisor. And I actually recognize
- some of you from Women Plus Build, so thank you all for being here. I also previously worked at Lauren
- Wood Builders, and while I was there, I worked on the Bloomington Cohousing Neighborhood,
- and the Hoosier Heights Climbing Gym, along with other projects. I studied construction at Ball State,
- and so I'm going to talk a little bit more about our construction plan. This is our five-year plan,
- and in year one, we're going to, it will start with Avalon Community Land Trust taking ownership of the land.
- Immediate repairs on the exterior will start. We'll be repairing the roof, paving the parking lot, and
- there will also be the improvements of the residential units, including things like new flooring, paint,
- and that sort of thing. In year one, we'll also be hiring an architect to make plans for major renovations.
- And then in year two, we will be applying for grants, securing loans,
- and hiring local contractors. In year two, we'll also be demolishing 432 South College, which unfortunately
- is not salvageable. I'll be getting back to that in just a moment though. In year three, we'll start
- major renovations at 414 South College, which is where my sister's closet is.
- 422 South College, which is where Jeff's Warehouse and Blue Tip is located, and 222 West Second Street,
- which is where Friendly Beasts and formerly Artisan Alley was. Those updates will include updates to
- the electrical, the HVAC, the sewer, and also replacing windows. In year four, we will
- We'll be finishing all of those major renovations and we'll start a feasibility study for a new housing
- development at 432 South College. In year five, if deemed feasible, we'll start the construction project
- at that location. Here's the exact scope and costs of everything that we have going on.
- We've been talking to Tommy Dees for an estimate for the windows, commercial service for the HVAC, Cassidy
- Electric for the electrical upgrades, and Kevin Potter who did an assessment in terms of the structural
- integrity of the buildings. I'm now going to be passing it back to Matthew so that he can talk about
- how we're going to plan to pay for this $1.6 million project.
- Okay, so we have our operating budget. By the way, all of this has been reviewed by multiple lenders
- and I've gotten a lot of incredible feedback throughout the process. So we killed creating this with
- the same people that we went up on this. So let's talk about our gross income. So we're looking at 422K
- a year. We include an assumption around vacancy loss. So assuming that some of the tenants
- Some of the units won't be housed, and some of the commercial might need time, et cetera. So we can
- bake that into the financials. Our residential price, with all you think, that with all the renovations
- that are needed, that this would just become a totally unaffordable project, and the exact opposite
- is true. We're able to keep rent prices at $700 a month, which serves 45% area median income, which
- is somebody that is making $36,000 a year. This could be a whole new home.
- for so many individuals in Bloomington that are often unserved. And then at commercial rent prices,
- we're looking at eight to 10 square foot for each unit of the commercial, which is incredibly competitive
- as well as the average commercial rent, sorry, square footage is about 16. So we create an incentive
- for the commercial businesses that are going to be struggling to pay their rent to come find community
- at Seminole Point.
- Operating expenses, we've baked in working with property management. We've baked in part-time staff,
- as well as for future projects that might need a little bit more on the outside of just the renovation
- plan, having a whole reserve contributed just for that, which is great. And then, which gets us to an
- income of about $244,000 a year. But when we include the debt service, we sit
- a debt service coverage ratio of about 1.27. This is just a ratio that explains how well that you can
- service the debt over an extended period of time. For most affordable housing plans, the financial gets
- you to a debt service ratio of about 1.1 to 5, 1.2. So even in that, it gives us room and shows that
- lenders would just love something like this. And so when we look at the use of the sources,
- When it comes to that renovation plan that we talked about, that's the hard cost of construction. But
- then we include the soft costs, the contingency, which, hey, second point, yes, there might be things
- that we crack open that might be more helpful. And so we bake that in. Most projects have about 10%
- contingency. We included 15% contingency, as well as pre-capital reserves and closing costs,
- so about 2.1 million. And we balance that with the sources that we're already working with, four approved
- clear mission-aligned lenders that we are already in conversation with, three of which, and the four
- we just had asked, three of which have agreed to sign a letter of support to our mission to save Center
- 8 Point and to build a cooperative. And also has said that they've looked at the financials and they
- want to continue working with us. And this is before we even have the land. The lenders are interested
- in seeing the land.
- So let's make this happen. So how do we do this? So this is even the breakdown. We're opening up the
- books. This is amazing. CDFIs across the country. And with weighted averages, we see about a 6.6% interest
- rate and a 21-year maturity, all of which we've gotten confirmed that this is relatively what the numbers
- would look like. So this isn't speculative, et cetera. This is really talking along with themselves
- on what it would look like. This is incredible.
- The one thing that we didn't make in at all, because we want to just convince people that this was absolutely
- possible. We didn't make in a single dollar of grant or free money into any of this. Which means, okay,
- that the debt service coverage ratio is just the payoff loans to service the entire project. That would
- go up even more if we got a fraction of this by grants or by crowdfunding, all of which we're starting
- to engage in.
- and look into more and starting conversations with the Community Foundation as well as other city grants
- and getting inspired by a lot of other crowdfunding campaigns that are around Bloomington and around
- the country. Bryce, take it away, my friend. Yeah, so just to wrap things up, we'll be ending soon,
- but the vision for this
- space that we're talking about. It's not just purely financial. It's not purely about the economic benefits
- that can come from having this cooperative space and having it known as a non-profit. But it's also
- about the community that can be created. We envision the space as a micro-neighborhood that has businesses
- that service the people who live there, that service the communities that are around them,
- and that is stable, and that is affordable, and that is developed by the people who live there.
- I mean, there are so many opportunities for what this could be. You could have community programming
- in the spaces that we use. We could have events like the Block Party over and over and over again. You
- could have kids playing whatever frisbee in the yard. You could do anything. The sky is really the limit.
- And it's all managed democratically, and it's all
- consistently affordable. There's no speculation. There's no profit incentive that's making things wildly
- unaffordable. This is the vision that we had. Sounds kind of good, doesn't it? This could become a new
- way of doing co-op as in Bloomington. We talked a little bit about the current existing co-ops. We have
- BeeFood. We have BCL. But this would sort of combine the two by making this a mixed-use development co-op.
- Like I said, stable rents, sustainability. We didn't talk a lot about that, but if we want to develop
- affordable housing, and we want to make it financially and economically and ecologically sustainable,
- the best way, the most ecologically sustainable thing you can do is use a building that already exists,
- rather than building another one. That's going to be a choice.
- And so with this plan, we have the ability to preserve this character of Wilmington that we're talking
- about, and not only just preserve it, enhance it. We're adding it to it. We're adding our generation's
- stamp on this fine count of ours. And there really aren't many opportunities like that that you get
- to see. So what's next? What can we do to make this happen? Our proposal, like we said, is for the CIB
- to submit a request or a response to the RDC's RFP
- or barring that those two bodies can come to some sort of arrangement that ensures that seminary point
- persists, that seminary point is preserved, that it's made affordable, that it remains affordable.
- I mean, this is policy. People make policy, and people can change policy, and people are who make the
- decisions on this. And so the last thought that we talked about I think is the most viable solution
- to realize this vision.
- It's, again, it goes and from that new show, all these different boards, things that we had to learn
- when we were figuring out how to save 7-8 point. I didn't know what the capital improvement board was
- before this, and you didn't either, don't lie. I didn't know who was on the RDC. I didn't know how they
- were appointed. I didn't know how the county handled all this conventions and stuff. Didn't know any
- of that. But now, I think this is an opportunity for all of us to get involved in shaping the city
- that we want to see in the future. And so if the RDC and the CID come to an agreement with respect to
- a land swap, and if that agreement includes spinning off Seminary Point as its own nonprofit, well,
- then we are in good shape. And then we can start refining these plans that we've made. We can start
- engaging further with these lenders. We no longer have to caveat that, well, we don't actually own the land.
- But we can now say that this is ours, and we want to make this thing happen. Can you help us?
- And so yeah, one of the things that we want to do if we get the land is begin creating this cooperative
- structure. Begin engaging the community members. Begin trying to get this community buy-in. Because
- you all just raise your hands that you use and love these businesses. And I think there are probably
- more people in the city who care about this sort of thing. And so we can get this community buy-in.
- We can make this happen, folks. Yeah, so we have a few QR codes here that you can use to get involved.
- One, to sign our letter of support, show that we have the support of the community, donate to our campaign.
- This will be kind of the first bit of the crowdfunding that we've been talking about. And also, we want
- feedback on this plan, on our presentation, on how clear we are, because if the public
- understands it, the public is engaged on this, and on any issue, well then that is the catalyst for
- very real change in our community. And that's what we want to see. So we're going to open it now to
- a, oh nice pictures of these, there it is, forgot Jeff again. We're going to open it up for a Q&A session.
- So we have microphones there and there. You guys can come up and ask questions if you want.
- We'll be just here to answer anything that you guys have. Thank you so much for coming. I also just
- want to say thank you to some of the decision makers who are here today. I won't call you out. And also
- to some of the
- our commercial occupants and tenants and business owners here. Thank you so much for coming out and
- being here. Now I know some of you guys have questions. I mean, this is kind of complicated. Surely
- someone has something to ask. Did we go up to the bottom of the slide? Yes, you can go to the bottom
- of the slide. Whichever line up.
- Do any of these existing rental units have accommodations for people with disabilities or an older adult
- who wants to age in place and just existing on social security and have no steps to get into
- That is a great question. Unfortunately, the 21 units that are currently viable are all upstairs. I
- think it is definitely a hope that we have that at the building at 432, where the residential unit is
- going to be demolished, that when we plan to build back there, that there would be certainly
- accessible units for that contingent of the population. Because it is definitely an issue in
- the affordability crisis that if you have a set income because of social security, that $200 rent increase
- also affects the older population, for sure. Thank you. And also as a follow-up, the people that are
- living in there now, hopefully they'll be able to continue
- to live in it after this project is completed, and while they're there, will they have to be moved out
- while the renovations are being done, and do you have plans for that? That is a great question as well.
- So the timeline that we are kind of looking at, so there are currently 21 units, and I believe 12 of
- those are currently occupied.
- Sorry, there are 29 units of affordable housing. There will be 21 units, and 12 of those are currently
- occupied. We're not entirely sure what those lease situations are, how many people have taken the extension,
- but the first priority if Avalon Land Trust gets the property would be to improve the number of units
- so that whoever wants to stay there, those units are the first ones that
- that get the deferred maintenance that they are currently experiencing addressed. And so it might involve
- them moving, but it might be from one unit to another unit on the same property. Thank you. Hello. I
- had a question about the proportion of commercial spaces to community spaces that y'all might be envisioning.
- I don't know if it's too early in the process, you know, to be thinking about that, but you had mentioned
- rhinos at one point as a community org that used to exist here in Bloomington and had a physical space.
- I know they're currently engaged in a campaign to potentially try to bring that back. Is there a certain
- percentage of the sort of like what is now commercial space or used to be artisanally that you see being,
- you know, you could subsidize and make happen as a community space?
- So it definitely depends on what commercial tenants are there currently that are interested in staying.
- We want to give those businesses priority, but I know that my sister's closet for example,
- already has a location elsewhere secured. So that is a space that we would love to see. It also, Rhinos,
- for those of you who don't know, is a music venue and was a kind of all ages space that was really beloved
- in the community. And my sister's closet would kind of be an ideal location just because it doesn't
- have any residential units above it. So it doesn't have the same
- core grammar concerns or things like that. So it does kind of depend. We're also talking to the former
- owner of Artisan Alley for the space that used to be Artisan Alley and bringing some space like that
- back. But it is definitely something that we're open to a lot of kind of different mechanisms. But until we have
- It's very difficult to get commercial tenants when you don't own the building yet. People don't want
- to sign contracts, apparently, for space you don't own. Shockingly. But thank you so much for your question.
- Did that answer your question? I believe so. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else, please? I see you raised
- your hand. If you want to shout your question, we'll try to repeat it in case people don't hear. Absolutely.
- So do the current commercial tenants and residential tenants
- What's your relationship with them? Are they, broadly speaking, on board with this? Where are they in
- this process? We've been actively engaging the actual tenants. To be honest, a lot of them have been
- expressing that they want to get more involved, but a lot of their lives do not operate around traditional,
- like how we see conventional timelines around meeting times, et cetera.
- They see us as the people that are fighting and advocating for them. I mean, we have a current tenant
- on our team that will be helping build the cooperative. Want to raise your hand? Yeah, team. I also
- just want to add that we are in conversation with a lot of the commercial spaces as well. And they are
- also interested in staying to different degrees.
- and are definitely encouraged by everything that's currently going on with the CID and RDC. Yeah, and
- just for a little bit more background on this, when the leases were terminated, when the current tenants
- were informed that their leases wouldn't be extended, there was some degree of support from different
- community groups and different county groups to help them find
- similar housing at a similar cost at a similar location. It did not work. And so some people have found
- other arrangements. Some people are just staying there until they get fully evicted because they don't
- want to uproot their lives. And so a number of tenants have expressed to us explicitly that they would
- love to be part of this new cooperative structure, even if they're not going to be at every meeting
- or they're not going to be
- giving presentations on the financial, they're interested in the fact that they can stay in their home
- and they won't have to be priced out. I mean, that should be enough for anybody, really. Yes, please,
- please. Yeah, walk up to them. You can line up and form a queue. Just for the QR code that came up earlier,
- what is this? Is this close enough? What are these first round of donations for? What would they be?
- So this first round of donations is for things like initially legal support, right? We have a lawyer
- that we're working with who has been very generous with his time and energies. We'd love to be able
- to pay him properly. But it's also building whatever expenses that come up in the process. If we do
- go through with this deal, I mean, there's all sorts of things called closing costs that we'll have
- to be able to fund. And there's also a thing with lenders in which
- they would like anyone receiving their loans, any department they have, to have some capital on hand
- to just ensure that if something happens, the project wouldn't be instantly put out of this lender.
- And so that's what the funds would initially go to. Thank you. That's a good question. Is this on? Yeah,
- we're very high up. I just have two questions.
- The second would be, I think BCL is great, but I didn't think it attracts a specific demographic. And
- I think this would be, I think we cater to people outside of that demographic with different values.
- And so, how are you planning on managing that? We can't hear her. Okay, so the first question was,
- I'm sorry, can you say it? The construction. Yeah, the first question was about managing the construction.
- This is a big project, and a bunch of volunteers might not be the best people to take that on. But that's
- why, in this project, we have included not only a property manager, but also a part-time staffer who
- would be taking on these sorts of things. And being able to have their job is to think about the process,
- to guide the process, be a point of contact for people if they have concerns, wants, wishes, or desires.
- And so that's priced in. And even with the part-time manager, this doesn't mean that the volunteers
- are going to go away. All of that stuff can't be done by volunteers, but the volunteers can certainly
- help. As to the different demographics and the different kinds of people who go to BCL, you're exactly
- right. The BCL houses, they're all single room occupancy, shared communal spaces, shared kitchens, shared
- bathrooms, and things like that. This is not like that.
- This is, these are one bedroom apartments. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. There aren't, you know, community
- kitchens or community living rooms or anything like that. And so it would be a lot less of the,
- you know, communal living and more of just the cooperative ownership structure that allows people to
- have a say in their lives.
- Think of it like if you have an apartment right now, your landlord asks you what you bought, and then
- took that into account. But that's kind of the model that we're using. Does that answer your question?
- And that is, I think, why we have baited in that the elect, that the stakeholders, like the residents,
- let's say, will elect representatives.
- So at the very least they have a vote for that, as well as just like decision making for their whole
- stakeholder group. But for people, yes, that maybe have multiple jobs and can't go to weekly meetings,
- et cetera, 100% that's OK. That's why they elect those representatives to be the voice for them. And
- those stakeholders will have somewhat consistent meetings that they will arrange around the times that
- are available.
- I was just curious if there are any family co-ops in Bloomington, and assuming that some of the people
- want to have families. And then also, is this a structure that you're talking about that can incorporate
- other locations in the future, or is it just restricted to this location? Thank you so much for the
- question. Did everyone hear the question? Anyone need it repeated? Wonderful. OK.
- I would say that this absolutely is, again, since these are all single family or single bedroom units,
- it does lend itself more to either single people, couples, or early families. I think the beauty of
- this initially is that
- Right now, it is incredibly difficult for young couples or single people to start saving for a house
- or start saving for those larger expenses like a family. And so this is something that would actually
- allow, for example, if that rent, the graph that I showed, where it's $1,100 a month for rent, if you
- live here, you can save that $400 and put it towards something else.
- So I think that this absolutely is something that can be beneficial to eventually families that are
- just starting out. This also kind of goes back to the question that Jean asked, which is I do hope that
- eventually there will be a project that happens at 432 South College and that it can be, this model
- can be expanded there and serve as potentially larger
- bedroom houses and units so that it can be beneficial for families so families could potentially be
- there maybe you know it's an area that a daycare could go on the first floor I mean the possibilities
- are kind of endless here and then your second question in terms of whether or not
- this could be expanded, it absolutely could. If this is a project that goes through, and honestly, even
- if it's one that doesn't, this is a model that is viable and worth doing in Bloomington. And no matter
- what happens, this group isn't going anywhere. So this is absolutely something that we want to continue
- promoting and doing in Bloomington. So thank you.
- I'm speaking out of school, but I think part of her question also was, does BCL have units that have
- families? The answer's yeah. Thank you. Yeah, so in my house alone, there was about three families that
- have lived there. There are individual suite units that have rooms within the suites. And it was amazing
- to be able to hang out with little kids and also be a grad student. It was a beautiful arrangement.
- But there's a lot of projects actually in town right now, a lot of which Avalon Community Land Trust
- also has a co-op that they have families in. And then Bloomington Cooperative Living has a lot of internal
- projects that we're working on exactly around addressing the ability to have family-based cooperatives.
- But not even just like shared living spaces that can be in the model, but like actually like having
- a little home
- for the family to exist in, but on a cooperative land. Hi, I don't have a question. I'm Capita Basilia.
- I'm an assistant professor in geography at IU, and I'm a researcher of housing and evictions and community
- land trusts. And I really want to commend Homes for All for all the work that you've been doing. It's
- really been amazing how far you have come.
- that if these bodies of government want to support deep affordable, permanently affordable housing that
- is community controlled, this is it. So thank you. Thank you. Just one more question. It seems like
- there are decision makers who are not fully on board. Who are they? Why are they not on board?
- Well, so this alludes back to this complicated political situation that I was talking about.
- On one hand, you have the property owners, the current property owners, the CID, the Capital Improvement
- Board. And think of them as a machine designed to get the convention center built at all cost and get
- the other project, the hotel and stuff built at all cost, come what may. And they express their goals
- very clearly. They need a host hotel. They would prefer the College Square site.
- But they have seminary point. And they were refused negotiations between them and the RDC to transfer
- that property. And so they have moved forward with demolition permits, with evictions, and with just
- general planning, reaching out to see if there are any developers who want to buy that property. So
- that's their position. But the RDC has an open call for proposals
- out for College Square. The CIB could, in theory, send a proposal in response to that RFP that includes
- basically the plan that we're saying. OK, you give us College Square, and then we'll give an Avalon
- community land trust seminary point to manage. But the current CIB has refused to do so because they
- believe that the burden is no longer on them to do so because of the previous efforts that have been rejected.
- That's their position, and I've talked with John Weicker, who's the head of the CIP, and that position
- hasn't really changed. The other decision maker that would have to agree to this is the RDC,
- the Redevelopment Commission. They have to agree to any deal that is proposed. So that's one hurdle.
- And there might be something that they could do to encourage the CIP to submit a proposal, or they could
- call them up and say, let's figure this out on the side or something. They have statutory requirements.
- They have statutory restrictions on what they can do. But within those, there might be a way to solve
- this. And at the top of this, these are all government bodies. And so the RDC is under the Housing and
- Neighborhood Development Department
- of Bloomington, and the CIB has members that were appointed by the county, by the city. And so there
- are decision makers who could find a way to do this. We've outlined one path that they could do that.
- And I encourage you all to, if you really want to see this happen, call your elected representatives.
- Leave messages in city hall. Tell them what you think. Tell them what you want to happen. They work
- for you. So that's what the situation is now. This past week,
- We've seen movement from the mayor who came out in an interview and said that, yes, we would love to
- see Seminary Point saved. So that might be open the door to new opportunities, new levers of pressure,
- but we'll see what happens. I will say she did encourage the CIV to put forth. She did encourage and
- she explicitly encouraged the CIV to put forth the proposal. Will the CIV listen?
- We don't know. But we're exploring different ways to use our collective power to put pressure on these
- groups to get them to do what is necessary to preserve a centenary point and encourage affordable housing.
- The war doesn't stop with this public forum. The war continues. Is the CIP contact at all on your website?
- It used to. I can't speak to it right now. But we can definitely put it there.
- Just look up the Bloomington or the Monroe County Capital Improvement Board. Can you repeat the question?
- Oh, sorry. The question was whether or not the CIB's contact information was on our Bloomington Homes
- for All website. It was. We had an Action Network form that sent an email out to them. We might be able
- to just forward around that right now, just after your question. I have a question. I'll go to the mic.
- All right, we're budgeting for 15 more minutes. I mean, if you guys have more questions, please. I'll
- take two minutes. So yesterday, I was having a meeting with some folks that seemed to be informed about
- these things, which I'm not totally informed about it. But it seemed to be that with this constant
- construction of hotels, hotels, hotels, that it seems that the hotels are having a problem filling the
- hotels. And so the idea that there's going to be two more hotels seems to be totally
- inconsistent with any management of good community, the building of good community. So I just wanted
- to get your comments on that. Yeah. I don't know the status of the hotel's vacancy, but if what you're
- saying is true, well, then it makes it all the more urgent for us to ensure that this land is being
- used for affordable housing instead of hotels that won't be used.
- I have a question. Is there an explicit deadline for us to get this proposal moving? So, yes. The deadline,
- in fact, we have a slide that shows some of the critical points on the timeline. Right now, the CIP
- has a request for proposals out on Seminary Point. Wow, there's so many slides.
- But the CID has a request for proposals out on Seminary Point. So this has been putting the call out
- that says, any developers who want to use this land to build something, send us a note. We can make
- a deal. That period for proposal ends on June the 30th. Now at their last meeting this past week, the
- CID has said that immediately after that, they're planning to hold a special session
- in which they will appoint a group of people to review any offers that they might have gotten, and then
- give a recommendation by their meeting on July 15th. So these are all critical dates that are important.
- The Redevelopment Commission has a request for proposals out in College Square, and that period ends
- on July 20th. So there'll be a period where
- You know, these bodies have the proposals from developers who want to use this. But it's up to them
- whether or not they want to act on this. So there is no timeline on when they have to act on these proposals.
- You know, public pressure might change this timeline to some degree. But regardless, the CIB's timeline
- about evictions is a critical one. August 31 was the date that these leases were extended to. But there's
- no guarantee that the CIB will extend the leases beyond that.
- One thing that could get them to extend those leases is if the RDC or the mayor's office or someone
- got in contact with them and said that a deal for this land swap is on the table, extend the leases,
- and we can talk about this in the interim. That would be one way to incentivize them to do that. But
- if people are kicked out of the building and displaced, as long as the building is still standing,
- There is still an opportunity for a movement on this. There's still an opportunity. Even if all the
- businesses and all the tenants are kicked out, which is not a scenario that we want, but even if that
- does happen, there is still an opportunity to save this housing and get new tenants there at these price
- points. So that's kind of a complicated and difficult answer to this. There's a number of deadlines
- for a number of different things. But for all the decision makers, we want this done as soon as possible.
- Right, the longer we delay all this, the more businesses leave, the more tenants leave, and the harder
- it is to sustain them. Yes. Yeah, so it looks to me that the map actually check out all these plans.
- So it seems to me that this decision ultimately points out to someone somewhere to make some decisions,
- right? So can you make a comment on, in terms of DCIB or the RDC thing, are they political appointees that
- Or are they making these decisions with some other sort of interest in mind? A potential thing,
- for example, is that if this deal comes out, you guys become a new sort of landlord in Putin. So is
- there any competitive thing financially, economically, that might interfere with this decision between
- the CIV and the REC?
- That's a two-pronged question. I'll handle the second part first. Are there any financial incentives
- to keep this deal from going forward? There is kind of one on the city's end, right? If we have a nonprofit
- take control of this land, then that is tax revenue that the city doesn't get. And so if you're looking
- at numbers, they might be incentivized to maximize the amount of tax revenue they get. Whether or not
- that's worth displacing people from living there, that's a policy question, a policy decision.
- But there's also the financial pressure of a developer. Like if there was a developer who says that
- I watch Seminary Point because I want to do this with it because I know I can make a bunch of money
- with it, well that would be another form of pressure against this kind of deal. The problem is, there
- doesn't seem to be any developer. We don't know how many have reached out to the CIB in response to
- their RP. Goodness gracious.
- I'm so sorry, but you always do that, right? We don't know how many people have reached out to the Capital
- Improvement Board in response to their request for proposals for secondary funding. It might be 100,
- it might be zero, but we'll find out on July 1st, the day after the end of that call. And the other
- part is the first part of the question is,
- It's kind of about, can you say that first part again? Yeah, can you clarify the CIB and RDC? Are they
- making these decisions based on some political or economic or financial agenda? What is their nature?
- Yeah, so the CIB, like I mentioned, is a machine designed to build a convention center and its associated
- projects. Build a hotel, build a convention center. Whatever happens, we need to get this done. They
- are appointed by political bodies.
- They actually have appointees from the city council, the county council, the county commission, and
- the mayor's office. But they do operate independently. They have their own meetings. As far as I know,
- no one has been like, you must do this for this purpose. They have their mandates written down, and
- they know it. The RDC is a body made up of three people appointed by the mayor and two people appointed
- by the city council. And their ostensible goal is to
- Encourage the development of Bloomington for the betterment of Bloomington, which you can interpret
- that in a lot of different ways. We are encouraging them to interpret that to mean preserve affordable
- housing at all costs. And when it comes to the incentives, I mean, the baits into our presentation is
- the fact that the incentive is that the better location for the Convention Center is remarkably clear.
- And then for the RDC,
- the incentive is that they're already working on affordable housing projects. And this would be to continue
- to care about affordable housing, not in the sense of being a landlord, right? We already talked about
- how our management ownership would work, but just in the sense of maintaining the thing that they're
- already pursuing in other projects. Yeah. I also, I don't have a question.
- but my name's Evie Barbu and I'm one of the members of the board at Avalon Community Land Trust, which
- is the land trust in partnership with the board. And to echo what Patricia said earlier, I've been very,
- very impressed with this group from the beginning. The thoroughness with which you've done your research,
- reached out to everyone, like all the stakeholders, done your community feedback, formed relationships
- with the tenants and the current commercial leases has been really incredible. And this is sort of exactly
- why ACLT was formed, was to take on these sorts of projects and to be an umbrella organization that
- can support these community-based, deeply grassroots,
- projects committed to long-term affordability and shaping Wilmington. So I just want to say we're really
- proud to be partners with y'all and are committed to follow through not just with the acquisition of
- the property, but to be ongoing partners in developing a really strong community-based cooperative into
- the future. So I'm also really happy to see so many people here and so many unfamiliar faces.
- I encourage y'all to continue to be involved. Reach out to your representatives. They're not scary.
- They're just people and members of the community. And so, yeah, continue to be involved. And thank you
- for everything that you're doing. Projects like this do not happen without other organizations to help
- support it. Sorry.
- You've repeated the acronym so many times, but it's a little bit offensive to me. So we're waiting on
- the RDC to put in for the RFP. We're waiting for the CIB to submit, sorry. I'm with you, we're ready
- to go. The capital and Peru are more than one similar point. We want them to submit a proposal to the
- RDC to call it square.
- write that north property that everyone knows better for a conventional center. In exchange, in a sense,
- for a sender eight point. To come to Avalon Camino Land Trust as a sender eight point cooperative. So
- they've not done that this round because they've been rejected in the past. I'm assuming that with these
- rejections, just because of how they took it, they go, that's come with criticism? Yes, so right now
- the claim is that the appraised values of the two lands are different enough for them to not be an equal exchange.
- But the thing that we're saying and the thing that city council is saying and the thing that the mayor
- is saying is that we don't look at it as a subsidy for the convention center. We look at it as a subsidy
- for affordable housing. Right. And the CIB is one of those boards that have people who've been elected
- by the mayor, appointed by the mayor, elected by the council. Yes. Yes. Great.
- Sorry, for a moment I was just kind of coming up with potentially a strange pride thing. So that was
- becoming really hard for me to wrap my head around. Like, what are we waiting on and why, if we have
- basically everyone's approval, quote unquote, except the CIVs, what we've been stuck waiting on for
- them, if it's really just boiling down to well, they've been rejected once they find somebody. Yeah,
- did you want to? Yeah, I was just going to say, I think it comes down to the fact
- didn't have that mandate that would have allowed them to move forward with it for a long time. And we've
- only recently had a lot of action on the city council's part or on the mayor, right? Like, things have
- changed in just the last month or two that, yeah. Is that correct? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's kind of true,
- right? Things have changed over the last month. Like, yeah, a few weeks ago, the city council voted
- 8-0 endorsing this kind of plan. Two days ago, the mayor came out and said,
- Yes, we want to save Seminary Point. But after both of these things, the CIB has come out and said,
- well, we're still not going to submit a proposal until the RDC says, no, we're going to talk about this
- land swap outside of this formal RFP process. They say that they don't want to submit a proposal. You
- can go and actually read this in John Weikert's own words.
- He left a comment on the most recent B Square Bolton article about this, you know, he comments there,
- he reads it. And he said it, he lists the times that he's asked the RDC to swap the land and it goes
- back to like 2024. And his reasoning for not continuing now is because ostensibly the RFP is still asking
- for $7 million.
- But I think the indication from the city council and the indication from the mayor means that if a proposal
- was submitted that didn't reach that price point, but that still reached this mandate of affordable
- housing, then it would be fairly considered and evaluated. He doesn't seem to care about it. There are
- a lot of mechanisms that we can use to push on this. But fundamentally, if these bodies don't come to
- some sort of arrangement,
- which they have the ability to do to some degree, even outside of the RFP process. If they don't come
- to some sort of arrangement, and soon, well then what I said will happen. The tenants will continue
- to leave, and the property will be demolished. Thank you for this question. It is 1.30. I just want
- to be respectful of everyone's time. There are so many important questions here, and especially there's
- a lot of complex political work that needs to be done.
- Two key things that we can ask you to do is to email John Whitehart and the CIB to submit a proposal
- to the RDC, which we'll call it Square, and to also, you can look up when the CIB meetings are. We're
- gonna be there, okay? And the second thing that you can do is email and engage the RDC members to ask
- them to engage with the CIB, potentially in a non-traditional way, and not to do requests for a proposal,
- and or to help them accept, if the city does submit a proposal to accept that for the sake of saving
- affordable housing. Those are two clear bodies that you can take away today to start engaging with,
- coming to those meetings. You can see the calendars on the city website. We will be there. You will
- not be alone if you go there, okay? And if you want more of this, please talk to us after. Anyone with
- a button that says Save Center Point, Bloomington Homes for All,
- We are representing this project. Let's talk more, guys. We can make this happen as a community. This
- can be something that we leave as a generational piece of what Bloomington can be. Because I don't like
- the fact that we call that area Crow Ghetto. That can be something that we make incredibly beautiful.
- So this is the time. Thank you so much, each of you for your time today.