I recently wrote an article about flipping houses in the Village of Blasdell by the Town of Hamburg. Well I received this letter from Christopher Hull, Director of community Development for the Town of Hamburg. I will share it with all of you and then comment as to where we disagree.
Dear Mr. Beckwith and Hamburg First Members,
Last Thursday, May 17th, I was called to Hamburg Town Supervisor Steven Walters’ office to meet with him and yourself about the property the town had acquired located at 4000 Buffalo Avenue. Both the Supervisor and myself thought we had explained the entire process to you at length and in clear terms. In addition, during our meeting I had invited you over to the Community Development building to pick up our departments brochures so you could see in greater detail what our department does. During our subsequent conversation, you stated that you would e-mail me a “proof” of your article to ensure the program details were correct. However, after checking your website yesterday (Monday, May 21) I noticed that you did not present the correct project details, nor did you present truthful facts or e-mail me a copy of your proposed article in advance of publishing as you stated you would do. If you had, clearly I would have given you the factual details for your article. In addition, your article totally misinformed your readers of what my department does. Therefore, in order to inform you and your readers of the actual details and programs offered by the Department of Community Development, I am submitting the following information to you, your organization and your readers.
First I will discuss the 4000 Buffalo Avenue project. I plan to present the actual facts, time lines and other information so that the truth and accurate details are available to all interested parties. First and foremost, the idea to purchase the property is based from federal regulation stating that in order to secure federal program funds, recapture provisions are implemented in all programs. In order to protect the large amount of grant funding expended at this location through a Housing Rehabilitation loan, the Department of Community Development initiated the purchase of the dwelling. Once acquired, the Department of Community Development would rehabilitate the dwelling and then sell the dwelling to a “client” of the departments First Time Home buyer Buyer program. This program assists income eligible clients to become homeowners by supplying them with a mortgage principal reduction conditional grant of $10,000.00. Again, the previous owner of the property located at 4000 Buffalo Avenue had been approved for a Town of Hamburg Housing Rehabilitation “Deferred” Loan through the Department of Community Development.
The homeowner wanted to have a new roof installed, a new furnace installed and also have a some windows replaced. The work was completed through our program and upon completion, the department filed our “Note and Mortgage” to secure the funds utilized for this loan (that is standard practice). In this specific case, the homeowner ran into personal problems and chose to vacate the dwelling and leave town without notifying anyone. The homeowners primary Note and Mortgage holder was forced to issue a foreclosure notice on this dwelling due to the lack of payment by the homeowner. In addition, after non-payment of taxes for a specified period of time, the dwelling is also taken back by the County of Erie and then sold at auction. In this instance, the property was to be sold at a foreclosure auction which our departments “Financial Collection” attorney was to attend. After purchasing the property, we had to have it cleaned and have the mold contamination mitigated. Once completed, we could proceed to the rehabilitation phase of the project and then to the sale to a client of our First Time Home Buyer program. To this end, a Town Board resolution was passed on February 5, 2007 authorizing the Department of Community Development to advertise for bidders for contractors to complete the necessary repair work. This is in fact the first time the Department of Community Development has had to complete an acquisition/rehabilitation project. It is not standard practice for the department to complete this type of project. However, with the previous homeowner vanishing and the dwelling sitting as an eye sore in the neighborhood we initiated our plan to acquire, rehab the unit and then sell it to a client of our First Time Homebuyer program. I want to make it perfectly clear that there is no “flipping” of houses by the Town Board or my department.
To get back to the process, the next step was to advertise for contractors to bid on the work required at the dwelling to bring it up to a decent, safe and sanitary (HUD terminology) level as well as a code compliant level. The rehabilitation process began with our ads in the Buffalo News (April 4th and April 11th) and our ads within the Hamburg and Blasdell/Lackawanna Pennysavers (April 15th). In addition, I also advertised online within the towns website and within my departments website. The Department of Community Development also held four (4) “open houses” at the dwelling so the contractors could come into the dwelling to view, measure and prepare their individual bids. On April 25th at noon, the bids were publicly opened and recorded (one resident attended the public bid opening). After that, a review of the bids took place and the appropriate contractors were selected based upon their being the lowest qualified bidder within their category of business. On May 14th I submitted a resolution to the Hamburg Town Board awarding the contracts to the appropriate contractors. As you can plainly see, the selection of contractors was not completed by any Board members, nor were there any contracts “given” to friends, family or “donators”.
At this time, I would like to address what the Department of Community Development does for the Town of Hamburg. The Town of Hamburg is a federal “Community Development Block Grant” (CDBG) Entitlement Community. This means that based upon an allocation formula at the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the town is awarded an amount of grant funds each year to complete eligible projects. These funds are highly regulated by HUD and require a staggering amount of administrative work with the appropriate paper trails. The grant funds are identified for use through the HUD approved Citizen Participation process. As part of this process, the Town of Hamburg has a “Community Development Citizens Advisory Committee”. There are eleven voting committee members who are appointed by the Hamburg Town Board (6 members), the Blasdell Village Board (2 members) and the Hamburg Village Board (3 members). Their committee meetings are open to the public as are all of the Community Development public hearings held throughout the calendar year. Through this regulated process, the citizens committee reviews funding requests from the public, both villages, other town departments and from the Town Board. The Advisory Committee then send its recommendation to the Department of Community Development for eligibility review. The department then checks for project eligibility within the regulations and within a national objective of the program. If the projects and use of funds are eligible the Department of Community Development will forward the recommendation from the Advisory Committee to the Town Board for their review and approval. The final step is the Hamburg Town Board approval via resolution. After that resolution approval, the Department of Community Development writes the Action Plan (grant application) to HUD for the given year with the approved projects. At this time, the department then completes all of the required administrative paperwork, the environmental reviews and the entire range of HUD regulated work and paperwork in this regard. The entire process follows a specific citizen participation process which has been approved by HUD and is totally open to the public at all times. Once all of the paperwork is completed and approved by HUD, it is also the responsibility of the Department of Community Development to administer all of the programs that were created within the given years Action Plan (grant application). This responsibility is not taken lightly and is fulfilled with direct and exacting work by the Department of Community Development.
I want to finish by stating that there is no politics or political agenda involved with the Department of Community Development or any of its projects. In fact, it is a violation of the federal Hatch Act to have this type of influence with federal funding. Furthermore, our department is heavily regulated and overseen by HUD, the federal government and the Town Board. I resent the fact that you have associated my department, the Supervisor and the entire Town Board with any wrong doing in this regard. I take pride in my job and the manner in which it is completed. If you were to investigate the Town of Hamburg’s reputation with regard to its Department of Community Development, you will find that it is extremely professional and hard working department that the town residents can believe in and trust. Sincerely, Christopher Hull
OK, where do I start? First the process of “flipping” is when a house is purchased, refurbished and repaired, then sold at a profit. That is exactly what the town did in this instance. Second Mr. Hull, you state that because this guy fled town that the decision was made to buy the property. In actuality what should have happened was our illustrious Town Attorney, Jim Sorrentino, should have placed a lien on the property and gone after the guy civilly to recoup the money he borrowed. At no time should the town have spent tax dollars to engage in “Flipping”.You say that no politics come into play with these contracts and decisions but by the very nature of political appointments politics is always at play. You said that the Town Board appointed many individuals to a board to oversee this department and funds. I’m sorry but I just don’t believe these political appointees don’t hold politics in their decisions.
Finally and really foremost you should understand that “HUD” dollars are tax dollars. Just because it didn’t come directly out of town coffers doesn’t mean that the money didn’t come out of our pockets. I for one am rallying against increased taxes and appropriate use of funds our town receives. Sorry but your argument here just doesn’t hold water in my eyes.
GET TOM BEST INVOLVED….