Comment by Phil_0 on December 11, 2012 at 8:55pm

@Hunter: I hear that.

@Shotsie: the Huning Castle apartments just west of this site are pretty full, as are the multiple smaller, older complexes in that neck of the woods...

Comment by shotsie on December 12, 2012 at 10:33am

The developer doesn't want to pay property tax, so he can lower the rent and provide lower cost housing for worker bees downtown.  But $52K per unit sounds like a lot of property tax to me - it's more like the cost to build the 150 apartments, plus property tax.  (Lets see - at $500/month per unit, the residents could live there for free for  ... $52K/unit / $500/month =   106 months. sign me up!)  Haven't they ever heard that water lines, sewage, roads, police protection, schools, etc... to serve this complex all cost the rest of us?    At least the county is delaying any discussion for a while -

Comment by Hunter on December 12, 2012 at 10:42am

shotsie - The game here is that there is a lot of money to be made investing in "affordable" housing.  There is a whole menu of options including local and federal tax benefits.  The bottom line results in returns of 15%-20%.  Not bad in this economy.  It's anybody's guess what the ultimate mix of affordable to market will be.  If you followed the progress of the project at 2nd and Lomas you will know that the number of affordable units was repeatedly  decreased as costs escalated in order to maintain the return to investors.  As I recall, the ultimate subsidy per unit was over $100K. 

Comment by shotsie on December 12, 2012 at 1:29pm

Hunter - thanks for the info - to be honest, I think it would be cheaper to just have the governments buy distressed motels, bid/upgrade them a bit so they are livable, then rent them out as affordable housing.  I've always have thought some of the motels on Central would be perfect as group homes, with strict rules for living there.  Reuse, not build new...

Comment by ramon t on December 12, 2012 at 1:32pm

Shotsie - 

#1 Using those old Motels does not really increase density all that much unlike a larger complex.

#2 In many case, rebuilding/remodeling those old Motels can be much more costly than building new.

Comment by once banned twice shy on December 12, 2012 at 2:17pm

All I know is if they are from Portland they MUST be cool. 

Comment by Phil_0 on December 12, 2012 at 3:07pm

I am going to agree with Ramon about the potential cost of rehabbing old motels...the guy who owned the Aztec Motel, who had already fixed up two other old motels in Nob Hill, finally ended up tearing it down because there was nothing he could do with it that would cover the costs of the renovation. Also, converted motels may not be able to accommodate enough reasonably-sized units to make them viable...the density issue Ramon mentions.

But motel renovation for housing is happening all over Albuquerque. There are currently 3 such projects in the works on East Central and another that just started about 2 blocks west of the Silver Moon Lodge site. The Premiere Lodge in Nob Hill was recently converted to efficiency and studio apartments. Where it's viable, the local affordable-housing coalitions and non-profits seem to have no trouble getting such projects off the ground.

The Silver Moon Lodge is kind of a different situation...the building's owners (not the city) speculatively shut down the motel because they were planning a big, multistory condo building there. When the real estate market crashed out, the project fell through and the motel was allowed to sit vacant and deteriorate to a point where tearing it down was the best option. The vacant lot that's there now is actually a marked improvement on the motel in the condition it was in.

Like I said yesterday, the proposed project seems well-suited to the kind of density planners currently envision downtown and especially if its apparent mixed-use component is real, would certainly seem to complement the mix of existing uses in the neighborhood. Especially if there's a mix of affordable and market-rate housing, it seems like it might well add something positive to the area. I have a hard time understanding the resistance to it here. It's frankly surreal to read complaints about infrastructure costs, roads, sewage, etc. for a high-density project on a major transportation corridor in an existing neighborhood. Especially when Albuquerque just gutted its impact fees for brand new developments out on the mesa with no existing services whatsoever...

Any county monies spent on this project would presumably be drawn from a fund dedicated for projects like this, in settings like this. I am just as unhappy as the next person with unchecked sprawl development or the wanton tearing-down of historic structures or unwarranted densification out of step with the surrounding neighborhood, but this is infill high-density housing in an area designated for infill high-density housing. On a vacant lot. It is hard to shake the sense that some people are simply against change or new construction no matter what...

Comment by shotsie on December 12, 2012 at 5:19pm

Phil_O, et al:  "It is hard to shake the sense that some people are simply against change or new construction no matter what"...

I have nothing against the project - I just have a problem with the developer mentality of sticking out their hand and asking for the government to absorb virtually the entire cost of building these projects.  I'm sure those projects you  mentioned have some government help, well, I don't want to venture to guess at the extent, but probably not $52k/unit.  If they want some help with sewer hookups, water, permits - no problem.  The no matter what is $8M of taxpayer money given to a developer who is promising slightly lower rents - and I performed the math earlier to show what a lousy return that is to the taxpayer who is ponying up 8 years of free rent for each unit.  

Comment by Phil_0 on December 12, 2012 at 8:55pm

@Shotsie, why not? The government ponies up for roads and utilities for exclusive new developments, tax investment districts for shopping malls, highway improvements on lonely rural roads that see maybe 1,000 or fewer cars a year. I agree with some of those expenditures and have trouble with others, but can you really say that affordable or marketplace housing in the walkable ostensibly dense urban core is any less in the public good than any of them? Affordable housing may be the latest developer profit strategy, but if the result is a net good and the money comes from funds pre-allocated for that purpose I don't think I have much of a problem with it. And I suppose I have a philiosophical problem generally with the notion of "the return to the taxpayer." Who decides what constitutes an adequate return? Is it purely financial? If so everything from mass transit to public art become hard to justify. I reject such reductive thinking.

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