Guillermo Sandoval
Chair
Megdy Khoury
Treasurer
Angela Martin
Secretary
Javier Alomía
Ana Alvarado
Javier Fernández
José Ibarra
Victoria Lara
Dave McConnell
María Ordoñez
Alex Perez
Joseph Portillo
Ellen Wyoming
Victor Merced
Executive Director
Main Office
5136 NE 42nd Ave.
Portland OR 97218
Ph: 503.595.2111
Fax: 503.595.2116
Board of Directors
Guillermo Sandoval
Chair
Megdy Khoury
Treasurer
Angela Martin
Secretary
Javier Alomía
Ana Alvarado
José Ibarra
Victoria Lara
Dave McConnell
María Ordoñez
Alex Perez
Peter Platt
Joseph Portillo
Ellen Wyoming
Victor Merced
Executive Director
Main Office
5136 NE 42nd Ave.
Portland OR 97218
Ph: 503.595.2111
Fax: 503.595.2116
November 25, 2013
Commissioner Dan Saltzman
1221 SW 4th Avenue
Room 230
Portland, Oregon 97204
Dear Commissioner Saltzman:
We are writing this letter to ask that you seriously reconsider your decision not to move forward on our Section 108 loan application with Portland Housing Bureau (PHB) to construct our community office building on our Clara Vista affordable housing campus, located on Killingworth and Cully Avenues. In conversations with your Chief of Staff, it has been stated that your opposition to our project is that an office building is not congruent with the 2008 housing preservation ordinance (No. 182302) passed by the Portland City Council and sponsored by then Housing Commissioner Nick Fish. We would like to point out that since passage of the ordinance, a similarly situated project—The Halsey Center located at 1435 NE 81st—was financed utilizing Section 108 funds. The Center does not have housing units but provides an array of services targeted at very low-income individuals. Given this precedent, we think our project merits support.
Furthermore, our application for Section 108 financing is a CDBG eligible project given the services we provide to our Latino population housed at our Clara Vista campus as well as those seeking support services. Our services include mortgage foreclosure counseling, home buying assistance, energy and rent assistance payments, home retention services, economic development assistance and training, youth and family services, programs and support, medical and clinical services (delivered at our community center on campus), and financial education. All of these services are delivered in a culturally specific manner, taking into account that this is one of the most fragile and disenfranchised populations in the City of Portland that remains vibrant and optimistic about its opportunities.
The community office building is part of the preservation and development strategy that was begun by PHB and Hacienda in 2002 to solidify the redevelopment of the Clara Vista campus. Our project will also help anchor a neighborhood that has steadily improved since Hacienda took over the complex over 20 years ago. Hacienda is currently located at three different locations and paying rent to three different landlords. The community office building will help consolidate our operations while at the same time anchor the neighborhood on Killingsworth and Cully.
Hacienda’s continued presence in the Cully/Killingsworth neighborhood combats gentrification in an area identified as high-risk for gentrification by PHB’s opportunity mapping assessment. The Hacienda project helps the City and PHB accomplish its equity goals. We are a culturally specific organization working with a minority general contractor on this and other Hacienda projects. Colas Construction will employ local residents in the construction of the project and, through a recently signed MOU with Metropolitan Alliance for Workforce Equity (MAWE), we will provide apprenticeship opportunities for the area’s residents.
Until your recent decision to stop the financing process for our project, Hacienda had spent nearly $300,000 of its own resources in pre-development costs. Our investment in the project will be the first commercial office built in the Cully neighborhood in over 30 years. The project will spur the redevelopment of the area almost immediately. We have secured an out-of-town New Market Tax Credit investor and bridge financing from both Well Fargo ($700,000) and Craft 3 ($1.7 million). This project is one of the few applications that are able to afford hard debt which makes the Section 108 financing especially important to both PHB and Hacienda. It is very difficult for our community to bring this level of investment into the area. The longer we delay the start of this project, the longer it will take to get boots on the ground and local residents employed.
Our community has waited a long time for this project to come to fruition. We ask that you allow the financing to proceed without delay. To help facilitate the process given your concerns, we have developed three scenarios that would help you make a positive recommendation:
1)Allow the project to proceed given how it accomplishes many of the City’s housing, equity, and neighborhood development goals;
2)Amend the existing ordinance to clarify the overall intent so that a project like ours can proceed through to financing. You can either choose to amend it through a consent calendar item or, as your Chief of Staff suggest, a transparent public process;
3)Combine the financing of the community office with an existing 25-unit preservation project on the Clara Vista campus (Vista de Rosas, formerly Wendorf). This would allow both projects to move forward as one, thereby legitimately accomplishing the City’s preservation goals while assuaging any concerns that it is not keeping with the spirit and intent of the ordinance.
We would like to schedule a meeting with you at your earliest convenience to discuss your response to our request and in the meantime ask that you consider the overall benefit of a project like this to our Latino community as well as the Cully/Killingsworth neighborhood.
Sincerely,
Victor Merced
Executive Director
Guillermo Sandoval
Hacienda Board Chairman