BANGOR — It could be your typical conversation between the U.S. government and the city:
Feds: “So we have this housing left over from when the Air Force moved out. We don’t need it, so maybe you want it.”
City: “Cool. We’ll fix it up, sell it to first-time home buyers and put the profits into our services to the homeless.”
Feds: “Not so fast. If you sell it within 10 years, the money’s ours.”
City: “Do we at least get back the money it costs us to fix up these empty buildings?”
Feds: “No.”
That’s the dilemma that comes wrapped up with the “gift” of 51 single-family homes in the area known as New Capehart. The housing — boarded-up units visible from Union Street — is on Maxwell Lane and part of Randolph Drive.
The question is whether the city should take the gift, offered by the feds in November, or leave it?
City officials say they hope to accept the housing — if they can work out the conditions.
The National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 1998, now signed into law, gives the secretary of the Air Force permission to convey the Charleston Family Housing Complex, and the nearly 20 acres on which it sits, to the city.
If the housing is sold within 10 years, the U.S. government would expect the city to pay back the lesser of two amounts:
The purchase price of the property.
The fair market value of the property, with no deductions for what the city would have to invest in the buildings to make them salable.
In addition, the government has already established its own fair market value for the property — more than $1.8 million — for an average of $36,000 a unit.
The 51 units are three- and four-bedroom homes, some on slabs and the rest with full basements. Each has a shared garage, either attached or detached.
The city would have to do a subdivision of the parcel, and also renovations to the homes, which have been empty and unheated for three years.
At a minimum, city officials say, the units need conversion of the electric service to individual meters; moisture problems fixed in some basements; interior cleaning; service and cleaning of boilers; 18 new fuel tanks; service, repairs or replacement for stoves and refrigerators; some painting of exterior trim and interiors; repairs and replacement for windows and screens; new ridge vents, gutters and downspouts; paving of driveways.
The city is willing to do the rehabilitation, but only if it can recoup its costs.
It’s not the Air Force that is pushing the 10-year payback provision, explained Rodney McKay, director of community and economic development.
“The people in the Air Force would just as soon expedite the whole process,” he said, but the law as passed contained the restrictions.
At this point, the city has asked the government’s General Services Administration for assistance with the problem.
“What we’re doing now is preparing a release deed to send to the secretary of the Air Force, putting in what we think we can accept for conditions,” McKay said.
If the city doesn’t take the property, McKay’s concern is that a developer might buy the land and buildings, do the subdivision and sell the units without rehabilitating them properly.
He also doesn’t want to see the units go on the market “all at once at a reduced price.” That would not only hurt the real estate market in the area and lower property values, but could result in the homes being sold to people who couldn’t afford to fix them up and maintain them.
The city could have turned them into low-income rentals, but already has 571 apartments of public housing in its northeast part, and a couple of years ago 51 units of Air Force housing were taken over for the Park Woods transitional housing project. The Bangor Housing Development Corp. also is taking over 100 units from the University of Maine.
McKay said the city is interested in seeing the 51 homes fixed up and sold to first-time home buyers, people who may qualify for loans through the Maine State Housing Authority.
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