Lots of "If" speculating here with no substantial facts.

 

     The East Lake type development that I and others proposed several years ago was designed to solve a lot of city problems such as; reducing crime, giving better school grades to students from low income homes, cleaning out the projects, controlling Section 8 housing, providing jobs and cleaning up sections of the city in order to make it more inviting to outsiders and businesses contemplating a move to Middletown.

 

     The East Lake Development in Atlanta, Georgia is a remarkable success story that there isn't enough space to tell here. Briefly, it was the worse ghetto in the country when it started with the highest crime rate in the country and childrens education was nil. After the East Lake Development got developed with its housing project and Charter school things got done in a way that impressed the whole nation. People were taken off of Section 8 in a remarkable way, crime was reduced by 87% and the children in that wonderful Charter School get the highest grade scores in the whole State. 

 

     I am most interested in all of those things happening here and I believe they can. What happened here was that certain people said that if Nagy had anything to do with it they would see it didn't happen. In the course of things, I agreed upon request that I would become invisible to the project if they continued it. I'm more interested in getting the project done than in who gets credit for anything. I have kept my word on that and you and others probably know as much about it as I do. 

 

      My understanding is that some have gone to Atlanta and there is some interest in doing that kind of Development. I am most interested in what I heard recently in a Council meeting of a proposal by the Place Matters group They suggested that downtown, the Douglas Park area and the Damon Park area be viewed as one whole developing block. I heartily concur with that. 

 

       The important things to know about the project I proposed was that Section 8 is controlled. The project I proposed was to have about 550 mixed income housing units. Half of those were to be section 8 who were to be assisted in getting employment and removed from Section 8 in 3- 5 years. That was built in to the program. Remember, also, this  was proposed when council was having a lot of personal infighting and the economy had not fallen yet. Had they gone ahead we would be probably finishing up that development about now and have had plenty of work with various pay level jobs for a couple of years. The project would range from about 150 million dollars to 250 million dollars. Most importantly our children from low income homes would be getting a better education and higher grade scores and have the same smile on their faces that you see at East Lake. Even now, this project would do great things for our city. Downtown doesn't need more millions thrown at it. It needs what it had in the 50's and 60's. It needs people. 550 families in close proximity to downtown would give our city a big lift.

 

     There is a lot more that could be said about the program but I think that puts it in perspective for you as to what was proposed by me and others at the time. i'm not sure what is going on now but if it is true to the East Lake schematic I'm all for it. It is a remarkable program and thought by many to be the best in the United States.

     

       Thanks for the comments.

 

       Paul Nagy

   

 

        

     I really don't know. The 550 units I proposed was four years ago. Yes, it is a big project. I haven't attended any of the current meetings. I'm invisible to this current project.

     Thanks for the question.

      Paul Nagy

   

I was invited to a presentation on this very topic BY Mr.Nagy quite a while back.

To me--this sounds pretty much like Mr.Nagy's project minus his name and any credit.

Whatever--let's hope something positive like this happens.

Doesn't matter who gets the accolades, and let them go to those "geniuses" over on the dark side .

Still--it is/was Mr.Nagy's concept pretty much as diagrammed by whomever is the leader now.

 

 

 

 

 

I can see now why some of the residents want to do away with the ward system and downsize council to 5.  You as a city are making poor business decisions to the detriment of the city as a whole. 

         I could be wrong, but I am of the opinion that an Eastlake project will have no bearing on the future number of Section 8 units here. 

 

 

Wasteful,

       "$250,000,000.00 for 550+/- People/families, in a city of 51000 people/families.  With that amount of money you could pave every road in Middletown, Buy Towne Mall facility and re-develop it into possibly thousands of jobs which would benefit the whole city.  You folks are betting a hell of a lot of money and your city on a very small group of people who have a poor track record of being able to be self-sufficient even with considerable help."

 

Wasteful,

         Your conclusions are as wrong as your assumption that $150,000,000 to $250,000,000 is for 550+/-  People/families. No one know what the bottom line is as the proposal has never been defined. Those are guesstimates. You need to study the whole proposal. It includes a lot of road paving, Construction (mostly funded from private money), tearing down projects, demolition of old buildings, etc. etc., and other city development. It may never happen but if it does happen the way it is at East Lake it is anything but wasteful and I would ask you to tell us a better and more substantial way to revamp a dying industrial city.  

 

      Thanks for your interest and I hope you and others will continue to think and discuss these things thats how we will bring ourselves out of this situation.

 

       Paul Nagy

By Johnny Edwards| Staff Writer

In place of it are rows of custom-brick buildings with apartments and two- and three-story townhouses, with two swimming pools and landscaped greenery.

A new model for public housing had its genesis in Atlanta, where the nation's first federal housing project became the prototype mixed-income community. Housing authority CEO Renee's Glover's stated goal is to eradicate all of the city's projects, and her counterparts in Augusta sent people there last year in an attempt to sell the concept.

When Atlanta implemented the mixed-income strategy, the city had things going for it that Augusta won't: the pre- and post-Olympics building boom of the 1990s, a gentrification trend, a multimillionaire philanthropist and a community anchored by Bobby Jones' home golf course.

"That thing was hailed as the new coming, and it wasn't at all," said Richmond County Neighborhood Alliance President Sammie Sias, who took the bus trip provided by the Augusta Housing Authority and wasn't impressed.

With the help of a $42.6 million federal Hope VI grant, Atlanta demolished Techwood in time for the 1996 Olympics and replaced it with Centennial Place. The Villages of East Lake, another much-touted mixed-income community, came out of a massive effort by developer Tom Cousins, who in collaboration with Ms. Glover used East Lake Golf Club to turn a ghetto once known as Little Vietnam into a neighborhood where new homes sell for $1 to $2 million.

Mr. Cousins, the developer of the CNN Center and the first phase of the Georgia World Congress Center, has said he took on the East Lake Meadows housing project after Atlanta's police chief told him the neighborhood was churning out more prison inmates than any other in the city.

He bought the club in 1993 and poured $25 million into rehabbing it, restoring its "great hall" in honor of Jones, a co-founder of Augusta National Golf Club. The nonprofit East Lake Community Foundation raised $120 million for the neighborhood through donations, bonds, tax credits and government funds.

After the housing authority prevailed in a lawsuit filed by displaced residents, East Lake Meadows was razed and in its place came The Villages of East Lake, which has a 50-50 ratio of public housing to market rate units. Dismally performing Drew Elementary School was replaced with Drew Charter School, where golf is incorporated into the curriculum and physical education classes use an attached YMCA.

Centennial Place and East Lake were the first and second of 15 mixed-income developments in Atlanta completed or under construction. Now, simply demolishing projects and moving dirt spurs development in an area, said Richard White, the president of The Alisias Group, the housing authority's publicity firm.

Even during the economic boom of the 1990s, few people invested in the area of Carver Homes in south Atlanta. With construction ongoing at The Villages at Carver and nearby McDaniel Glen, new rooftops are sprouting up -- duplexes, apartments and detached homes marketing for $200,000 to $300,000.

When she was a teenager, Kimberly Woolfolk said she watched a man get shot at an intersection in East Lake, and she considered the area rife with crime and drugs. But as a single parent of two daughters, she rented an affordable housing unit in The Villages of East Lake for five years.

She put her daughters in the on-site day-care center when they were younger, then later they attended Drew Charter School.

"You don't get singled out," Ms. Woolfolk, 30, said, "and you don't get treated like you're different than anyone else. Basically, you have a chance to improve your life."

Antoine Shearer II similarly benefitted from Centennial Place, having moved into an affordable housing unit with his fiancee four years ago. Now the couple and their two daughters live in a new townhouse on the site that they bought for $162,000 through an assistance program. It was recently appraised for $300,000, Mr. Shearer said.

Though he's glad to have a nest egg, he wonders whether helping a dozen or so people like himself was worth displacing hundreds.

"When you look at the aesthetics of it, it's better," Mr. Shearer, 39, said. "But what happens to the people?"

Anita Beaty, the executive director of the Metro Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless, said the mixed-income strategy has worsened the city's homeless problem. The loss of public housing units has people on waiting lists lingering in shelters, she said. She also alleges that when the housing authority sets out to raze a complex, before relocating residents it evicts as many as it can by aggressively enforcing lease agreements.

No comprehensive, nationwide study of the strategy's effects has been completed. Narrowly focused studies, both by a Georgia Institute of Technology economics professor and the Urban Institute social policy think tank, reported that families who left traditional public housing -- either through Section 8 vouchers or by returning to mixed-income communities -- made strides in quality of life as opposed to families that remained in projects.

Other indicators show all isn't well.

On the Web site http://apartmentratings.com/ - ApartmentRatings.com , Centennial Place has a 26 percent recommendation rate out of 73 reviews, with naysayers deriding poor security, uncleanliness, unruly neighbors and unresponsive management.

The Villages of East Lake fared worse with a 19 percent approval rate out of 37 reviews, with posters lodging similar complaints.

Such sentiments point to an often-overlooked aspect of the concept: its success or failure depends not on appeal to public housing tenants, but to market-rate customers whose rents keep it afloat, said John H. Hiscox, the executive director of the Macon Housing Authority, which aided by a $19.3 million Hope VI grant replaced Oglethorpe Homes housing project with Tattnall Place.

"It's risky business," Mr. Hiscox said. "What really has to be proven is whether the middle-income people or market rate people are going to be comfortable paying rent and living in a mixed-income community."

         This is sad news to me. I'll check it out and get back to you on the current status of East lake. Again, I've not been involved for three or four years.

          Paul Nagy

 

Nelson (Ima B. Lever),

      Now lets look at the same article without the prejudicial highlighting while I'm waiting for a response to specific questions from East Lake.

      Thank you.

       Paul Nagy

 

 

Ima B. Lever wrote: Eastlake community in Atlanta stirs questions What does the future of poverty look like? By Johnny Edwards| Staff Writer Sunday, July 06, 2008 storyTools(); ATLANTA --- In the early 1990s, Techwood Homes was a pit of inner-city blight and violence. storyPhotos();   http://spotted.augusta.com/chronicle/lookup.html?date=2008/07/06&photo=2767374&title=metro - The East Lake Foundation's mixed income housing units can be seen from the pool area. The former notorious Atlanta housing project has been replaced with modern single family units, a charter school, golf course and a YMCA on the grounds.   Now only sparse elements of it remain -- two senior housing high-rises, some 60-year-old oak trees and a single brick building, preserved for antiquity, with the cupola where President Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicated Techwood in 1935. In place of it are rows of custom-brick buildings with apartments and two- and three-story townhouses, with two swimming pools and landscaped greenery. A new model for public housing had its genesis in Atlanta, where the nation's first federal housing project became the prototype mixed-income community. Housing authority CEO Renee's Glover's stated goal is to eradicate all of the city's projects, and her counterparts in Augusta sent people there last year in an attempt to sell the concept. When Atlanta implemented the mixed-income strategy, the city had things going for it that Augusta won't: the pre- and post-Olympics building boom of the 1990s, a gentrification trend, a multimillionaire philanthropist and a community anchored by Bobby Jones' home golf course. "That thing was hailed as the new coming, and it wasn't at all," said Richmond County Neighborhood Alliance President Sammie Sias, who took the bus trip provided by the Augusta Housing Authority and wasn't impressed. With the help of a $42.6 million federal Hope VI grant, Atlanta demolished Techwood in time for the 1996 Olympics and replaced it with Centennial Place. The Villages of East Lake, another much-touted mixed-income community, came out of a massive effort by developer Tom Cousins, who in collaboration with Ms. Glover used East Lake Golf Club to turn a ghetto once known as Little Vietnam into a neighborhood where new homes sell for $1 to $2 million. Mr. Cousins, the developer of the CNN Center and the first phase of the Georgia World Congress Center, has said he took on the East Lake Meadows housing project after Atlanta's police chief told him the neighborhood was churning out more prison inmates than any other in the city. He bought the club in 1993 and poured $25 million into rehabbing it, restoring its "great hall" in honor of Jones, a co-founder of Augusta National Golf Club. The nonprofit East Lake Community Foundation raised $120 million for the neighborhood through donations, bonds, tax credits and government funds. After the housing authority prevailed in a lawsuit filed by displaced residents, East Lake Meadows was razed and in its place came The Villages of East Lake, which has a 50-50 ratio of public housing to market rate units. Dismally performing Drew Elementary School was replaced with Drew Charter School, where golf is incorporated into the curriculum and physical education classes use an attached YMCA. Centennial Place and East Lake were the first and second of 15 mixed-income developments in Atlanta completed or under construction. Now, simply demolishing projects and moving dirt spurs development in an area, said Richard White, the president of The Alisias Group, the housing authority's publicity firm. Even during the economic boom of the 1990s, few people invested in the area of Carver Homes in south Atlanta. With construction ongoing at The Villages at Carver and nearby McDaniel Glen, new rooftops are sprouting up -- duplexes, apartments and detached homes marketing for $200,000 to $300,000. When she was a teenager, Kimberly Woolfolk said she watched a man get shot at an intersection in East Lake, and she considered the area rife with crime and drugs. But as a single parent of two daughters, she rented an affordable housing unit in The Villages of East Lake for five years. She put her daughters in the on-site day-care center when they were younger, then later they attended Drew Charter School. "You don't get singled out," Ms. Woolfolk, 30, said, "and you don't get treated like you're different than anyone else. Basically, you have a chance to improve your life." Antoine Shearer II similarly benefitted from Centennial Place, having moved into an affordable housing unit with his fiancee four years ago. Now the couple and their two daughters live in a new townhouse on the site that they bought for $162,000 through an assistance program. It was recently appraised for $300,000, Mr. Shearer said. Though he's glad to have a nest egg, he wonders whether helping a dozen or so people like himself was worth displacing hundreds. "When you look at the aesthetics of it, it's better," Mr. Shearer, 39, said. "But what happens to the people?" Anita Beaty, the executive director of the Metro Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless, said the mixed-income strategy has worsened the city's homeless problem. The loss of public housing units has people on waiting lists lingering in shelters, she said. She also alleges that when the housing authority sets out to raze a complex, before relocating residents it evicts as many as it can by aggressively enforcing lease agreements. No comprehensive, nationwide study of the strategy's effects has been completed. Narrowly focused studies, both by a Georgia Institute of Technology economics professor and the Urban Institute social policy think tank, reported that families who left traditional public housing -- either through Section 8 vouchers or by returning to mixed-income communities -- made strides in quality of life as opposed to families that remained in projects. Other indicators show all isn't well. On the Web site http://apartmentratings.com/ - ApartmentRatings.com , Centennial Place has a 26 percent recommendation rate out of 73 reviews, with naysayers deriding poor security, uncleanliness, unruly neighbors and unresponsive management. The Villages of East Lake fared worse with a 19 percent approval rate out of 37 reviews, with posters lodging similar complaints. Such sentiments point to an often-overlooked aspect of the concept: its success or failure depends not on appeal to public housing tenants, but to market-rate customers whose rents keep it afloat, said John H. Hiscox, the executive director of the Macon Housing Authority, which aided by a $19.3 million Hope VI grant replaced Oglethorpe Homes housing project with Tattnall Place. "It's risky business," Mr. Hiscox said. "What really has to be proven is whether the middle-income people or market rate people are going to be comfortable paying rent and living in a mixed-income community."

 

 

10/18/2007	/rate/GA-Atlanta-The-Villages-of-East-Lake-687692.html - Prospective Tenant deterred by your reviews	NO	3.0
06/19/2007	/rate/GA-Atlanta-The-Villages-of-East-Lake-635898.html - Nicest Community in the area	YES	4.0
05/30/2007	/rate/GA-Atlanta-The-Villages-of-East-Lake-628420.html - Seriously.....don't even look at this place!!!!	NO	3.0
01/06/2007	/rate/GA-Atlanta-The-Villages-of-East-Lake-569389.html - Daughter almost killed	NO	2.0
12/05/2006	/rate/GA-Atlanta-The-Villages-of-East-Lake-558535.html - A frustrating place to live	NO	2.0
08/22/2006	/rate/GA-Atlanta-The-Villages-of-East-Lake-521866.html - THEY SUCK!	NO	1.0
06/21/2006	/rate/GA-Atlanta-The-Villages-of-East-Lake-472107.html - Don't Believe the hype	NO	1.0
06/08/2006	/rate/GA-Atlanta-The-Villages-of-East-Lake-465453.html - NO WAY!! DO NOT LIVE HERE	NO	2.0
06/07/2006	/rate/GA-Atlanta-The-Villages-of-East-Lake-464727.html - Dont Do it! Turn BAck NOw !	NO	1.0
05/23/2006	no title	NO	1.0
03/01/2006	/rate/GA-Atlanta-The-Villages-of-East-Lake-417551.html - Pretty but still the Projects	NO	2.0
01/04/2006	/rate/GA-Atlanta-The-Villages-of-East-Lake-397250.html - too high too ghetto	NO	3.0
11/10/2004	/rate/GA-Atlanta-The-Villages-of-East-Lake-279692.html - TOO MUCH MONEY	NO	3.0
07/23/2004	/rate/GA-Atlanta-The-Villages-of-East-Lake-249140.html - blah	NO	2.0
06/29/2004	/rate/GA-Atlanta-The-Villages-of-East-Lake-239440.html - nice apt in a gentrifying n'hood	YES	3.0
06/18/2004	/rate/GA-Atlanta-The-Villages-of-East-Lake-235487.html - Convenient to Decatur and downtown	NO	4.0
05/30/2004	/rate/GA-Atlanta-The-Villages-of-East-Lake-228197.html - Not Worth It.... one year was enough for me	NO	2.0
04/16/2004	/rate/GA-Atlanta-The-Villages-of-East-Lake-212143.html - Hated it	NO	2.0
03/31/2004	/rate/GA-Atlanta-The-Villages-of-East-Lake-206662.html - it could be worse	YES	3.0
11/09/2003	Rats, Ghetto, Police - Think about it	NO	2.0
10/11/2003	/rate/GA-Atlanta-The-Villages-of-East-Lake-160495.html - Mixed income housing is the dumbest idea ever	NO	1.0
08/28/2003	/rate/GA-Atlanta-The-Villages-of-East-Lake-150800.html - You don?t always get what you pay for..	NO	2.0
07/21/2003	/rate/GA-Atlanta-The-Villages-of-East-Lake-143714.html - OVER PRICED	NO	3.0
03/25/2003	/rate/GA-Atlanta-The-Villages-of-East-Lake-121753.html - Bankhead living with a Buckhead exterior	NO	1.0
03/24/2003	/rate/GA-Atlanta-The-Villages-of-East-Lake-121606.html - Some of us Work and pay full price while other lazy people get an almost free ride!	NO	3.0
01/09/2003	/rate/GA-Atlanta-The-Villages-of-East-Lake-108287.html - Location, Convenience, Great School	YES	4.0
12/22/2002	/rate/GA-Atlanta-The-Villages-of-East-Lake-105578.html - This place used to be the Projects	NO	3.0
12/07/2002	/rate/GA-Atlanta-The-Villages-of-East-Lake-103544.html - The Best Living Experience Ever	YES	5.0
12/07/2002	/rate/GA-Atlanta-The-Villages-of-East-Lake-103546.html - A Novel Idea!	YES	5.0
12/07/2002	/rate/GA-Atlanta-The-Villages-of-East-Lake-103547.html - Try it, you´ll LOVE IT!	YES	5.0
12/05/2002	/rate/GA-Atlanta-The-Villages-of-East-Lake-103262.html - What looks good is not always good!	NO	2.0
11/04/2002	/rate/GA-Atlanta-The-Villages-of-East-Lake-99126.html - DO NOT MOVE Here	NO	2.0
08/30/2002	/rate/GA-Atlanta-The-Villages-of-East-Lake-41582.html - Find another place to live!	NO	1.0

       Wow! I am aghast. Was I sold a bill of goods? These response were over several years and average from 5 -7 negative responses a year. I have to think that through when there are 500+ families in that development. But it certainly says something is wrong. I should have answers to my questions from East Lake this afternoon or tomorrow. I'll post them as soon as I receive them.

       Thanks for your homework. Back four years ago it was the bright star in development across the country and endorsed by all of the heavy weights.  Their achievfements were astounding. My what a day brings forth. The world is getting crazier by the hour. 

        Paul Nagy

A brief, amazingly accurate assessment of the process and issues involved.

And simply basic common sense.

By: http://www.builderonline.com/find-articles.aspx?byline=Jenny%20Sullivan - Jenny Sullivan  

HUD wants to create stronger communities by taking the federal HOPE VI revitalization program to the next level, according to a July 14 speech by HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.

Here is the email I sent.

 

       Carol is the Executive Director of the East Lake type developments throughout the country. Laura (who is new to me) is her secretary. I don't really know what Bill Triick has to do with all of this except a year or so ago I publicly (at a Council meeting) asked him to run with this project. I have been invisible to it since then and I really don't know much of what is going on with it.

      When you asked about what went on at the MUM meeting that was news to me. Thats all folks! If I hear anymore I'll let you know.

      Thank you for your interest and keep pushing our city forward to solve its problems.

       Paul Nagy