Hollywood’s Great Neighborhoods Challenge
Our City’s economic decline is visible everywhere. City staff has pondered how we can accomplish dramatic and positive change, given the City’s very limited financial resources. That’s where the Great Neighborhoods Challenge comes in — a 120 day city-wide property improvement contest, with cash prizes, that begins December 1, 2011.
It’s a collaborative effort among the City, residents, business owners, and organizations with an interest in working together to make all Hollywood neighborhoods better. For purposes of this contest, Hollywood is divided into 15 geographic areas that cover the entire city. The Challenge has both a private and a public property component.
Private Property Challenge
The City has launched this four-month Challenge to inspire property owners to take a fresh look at their home or business to see what exterior improvements would spruce up the property. Not only individual homes, but also condos and other multifamily buildings as well as businesses are eligible to enter the Challenge. Tenants, also, may participate, provided their landlord agrees. Perhaps a fresh coat of paint is in order, or the landscaping needs attention. What about cleaning out that carport, or removing that broken-down fence? What can you do to add some curb appeal to your property? Only exterior improvements visible from the public right of way are eligible.
Enter the contest, make the improvements between December 1, 2011 and April 1, 2012, and you may win a prize. Thirteen prizes will be awarded to the winners in each participating geographic area that submits a minimum of 25 improved properties ($2500, $1000, and $500 as first, second, and third prize, plus $100 gift cards for ten honorable mention winners). The prize money is coming from the City’s Tree Fund (or from the CRA if a winner’s property lies within CRA boundaries). As a Challenge participant you’ll get to know your neighbors, improve the look of your neighborhood, and help raise its property values, as well as having a shot at the prize money.
Prior to December 1, each of the 15 areas will be organizing a Neighborhood Action Committee (NAC) to coordinate the Challenge and line up at least the 25 participants the NAC needs to enter the contest. Hopefully more than the minimum will participate in order to achieve a greater impact in the neighborhood. Until the NACs are organized, you can express your interest in participating and/or get more information about the Great Neighborhoods Challenge by calling the City of Hollywood’s Community Development Department at 954-921-3381 or visiting its website.
Public Property Challenge
Each NAC that achieves the minimum 25 improved privately owned properties is also eligible to submit a design for improvements to a publicly owned space in its neighborhood. The Public Space Challenge has three or four winners city-wide. The City will do the work on the winning designs.
The rules for the Great Neighborhoods Challenge and much more information about the contest is available on the Department of Community Development’s website.
Filed under: Neighborhoods
February 6, 2007
Back in April 2006, the Balance Sheet reported that the two Emerald Hills residents then on the Hollywood City Commission (the Mayor and Commissioner Keith Wasserstrom) successfully pushed a capital improvement project in their district to the head of the line: $600,000 for a wall for the Lakes of Emerald Hills. And the Commission voted to borrow the money for this project in response to highly effective advocacy on the part of the neighborhood.
The Mayor and Commissioner Wasserstrom had tried to get funding for this wall included in the general obligation bond but could not overcome opposition from the city’s bond counsel. The wall was explained as essential for safety and a sound barrier because of the increased proximity of the Tri-Rail tracks caused by the double tracking project. The proposed wall was not included in the City’s five-year capital plan — as is required of all the other capital improvement projects that have awaited available funding for years.
Now, there is a complication that calls into question the very justification for building the wall. At the time the City Commission approved spending the extra money for the wall, a continuous 1900-foot wall was contemplated. But now, some of the affected property owners are refusing to grant easements for the wall. This means that “there may be a gap in the wall system that will extend across one, two or three adjacent single family residential parcels.”
Due to this potential gap, community residents are seeking additional easements from property owners to the south but it is not clear that the city will be able to obtain these easements either.
The matter is on the City Commission agenda this week for clarification. Two questions come to mind:
Is funding a sound barrier-safety wall with multiple gaps a good use of city money?
Now that District 4 does not have a commissioner, would it not be better to postpone this agenda item until after the February 13 election when Emerald Hills will again be fully represented?
September 24, 2006
Quality Small Inns Endangered … and Why It Matters
Hollywood Beach’s small inns and motels — those charming 4-18 room inns that give a special character to our beach and provide a welcome alternative to the national chains — are losing ground to the big motels and hotels. They may soon be a thing of the past unless Hollywood finds a way to address their future.
Many of Hollywood Beach’s small inn proprietors are allowing their properties to run down, just hoping and waiting for a windfall sale.
Others, however, have improved their properties and want to continue contributing uniqueness, quality and charm to the Hollywood beach scene. These are the ones that need a special kind of help to stay in business. 
A recent panel discussion led by experts in the field presented findings that only establishments of 30 or more rooms could survive in this business climate. Skyrocketing taxes and property insurance are the chief culprits: out-of-control operating costs that cause even the best small inns to lose money.
Why does it matter to tax-paying residents whether these motels and inns survive? Consider that they usually offer a more moderate room rate for our visiting friends and family. They are the places that provide the character and neighborhood-based, family atmosphere we’ve tried so hard to keep on our beach in the face of ever more high-rise
establishments.
They are part of Hollywood’s history — history that anchors our city and creates that family-friendly, casual, barefoot, tropical feel we love.
If they disappear completely, we will see instead more of the enclosed resorts and walled private residential buildings that are already replacing them at an alarming rate.
It is true the Beach CRA has no ability to change tax or insurance rates, but there are other types of assistance that the Beach CRA and the City could provide to help out. 
Gary Isaacson, who owns a small inn on Hollywood North Beach, provides the following suggestions to our city and CRA, as possible approaches to offset the huge jump in taxes and insurance that is putting our small motels and inns out of business.
Do you have additional ideas? Please write to the Balance Sheet and let us know your thoughts.
Short-Term Ideas
- Help those motels and inns that plan to stay on the beach to qualify as Superior Small Lodgings (SSLs). Several are already SSL members and we understand that the Beach CRA is now exploring with SSL whether it can establish Hollywood as a Superior Small Lodging Beach. SSL is a membership of inns and motels that are quality-controlled by an unannounced inspection each year. They are graded yearly for their appearance, cleanliness and appointments.
- Enforce the code. Code enforcement focused on property maintenance and landscaping is probably the most critical service the City and CRA can provide.
- For those establishments that qualify for SSL membership, offer help with ongoing service such as (a) a centralized booking system, (b) landscaping services, (c) rubbish removal, (d) housekeeping services, and (e) centralized purchasing.
Long-Term Ideas
- Advocate for lower insurance rates for those small inns and motels that improve our beach neighborhoods. Lobby at the state level. Engage a consultant to find the lowest insurance rates.
- Advocate for decreased taxes for the small quality inns that improve our beach. Engage a professional, who can write legislation and lobby the state, county, and city for a fairer tax appraisal.
- Require deteriorated properties to pay higher taxes. Develop a fair system of evaluation toward this goal.
We urge the City and CRA to move their sights beyond the mega-hotel-resorts, and consider innovative ways to help small quality lodgings on the beach survive. The contribution that these small inns make to the special character of Hollywood Beach cannot be over-emphasized.
March 6, 2006
Last month, Neal Herst, Hollywood’s Director of Housing and Community Redevelopment, held a workshop on affordable housing for our city commission. Also included were members of Hollywood’s Community Development Advisory Board and the Hollywood Housing Authority.
This was Affordable Housing 101 for our elected officials who on the whole did not seem well informed. Mr. Herst made it clear that the term “affordable housing” does not refer to housing for poor people. It is housing that our workforce can afford: our teachers, nurses, librarians, and so forth. The mayor lamented at length, not once but twice, that cities like Weston and Parklands have double and triple the median income of Hollywood and therefore the burden of creating affordable housing falls heavily on Hollywood while the wealthy cities get off virtually scot-free.
Mr. Herst maintained a positive can-do tone throughout. He gave an excellent presentation that began with a definition of “affordable housing” (below), followed up with statistics to document the tremendous need for this type of housing in Hollywood. He then presented eight possible strategies for solving the problem.
Affordable Housing
Housing is considered affordable when the monthly cost of rent plus utilities (or a mortgage plus taxes and insurance) is less than 30% of the household’s monthly gross income. This definition applies to households whose income falls below 120% of the area’s average median income. For a family of four, 120% of the median income is $72,000. A household earning this amount could afford a $200,000 mortgage at current interest rates.
He noted that 59% of Hollywood’s tenants and 39% of Hollywood’s homeowners are paying more for housing that they can afford (cost burdened households). These figures track almost exactly the numbers for Broward County as a whole (58% of renters, 38% of owners).
The workshop included data showing that median household income in Broward County has remained almost flat since 1993, while the cost of housing has risen sharply.
The range of possible solutions to our housing crisis presented by Mr. Herst include the following;
- Incentivize new housing units
- Land banking (community land trust)
- Streamline the development process
- Change development regulations
- Maintain existing units
- Develop new funding sources
- Create a dedicated local funding source
- Require inclusionary zoning
To date, with one exception that we know of, the city has incentivized market-rate but not affordable housing units. Its one venture into incentivizing affordable housing lies on Adams Street and the carrot being offered there is free land. Two developers are in the running to build this project (Gary Posner with Victory Housing or MG3 teamed up with Cynthia Berman Miller) but to the best of our knowledge, the selection process has not yet run its course. Posner proposed initially to create 60 affordable townhouses, while MG3 offered a mix of affordable and market-rate townhouses on the site.
As for land banking, the city is in the process of bringing a community land trust into being through Henry Graham of LES, Inc. Mr. Graham’s organization is the sole organization in Hollywood that qualifies for certain federal funds as it is a recognized community housing development organization (CHODO). In addition, it has traditionally received economic development funding from the city’s share of CDBG funds. As a result LES receives from the city some $200,000 or more annually. Exactly how LES spends these funds was not discussed at the workshop, but it would be interesting to know. As the home of a land trust, LES will qualify for additional funding, though eventually the land trust should be self-sustaining. The details of this project are yet to be finalized.
Streamlining the development process and changing development regulations to make it easier to build affordable housing could involve allowing greater density for affordable housing, granny flats, smaller lots, reduced or waived permit fees, for example. These strategies were raised but not discussed in any detail at the workshop.
Maintenance of existing units was recognized as a problem. For example, the affordable housing on Adams Street is to be built on land that formerly held deteriorated affordable housing, so there is little net increase in the number of units, though the quality will improve. As the city is gentrified, affordable housing is lost to higher-cost dwellings. City commissioners seemed to understand the need to pay attention to maintaining and improving existing affordable units.
Mr. Herst presented the idea of creating an affordable housing trust as a dedicated source of funding to assist affordable housing projects. Also so-called inclusionary zoning was discussed: a market rate project that is required to include a percentage of affordable units. They mayor was opposed to this approach because she felt those in the affordable units would not be able to keep up with the monthly maintenance fees as they increased over time. She told of a senior citizen who lost his home under these circumstances.
With information presented at this workshop on the severe shortage of affordable housing in Hollywood, plus a range of strategies for mitigating the problem, the City Commission must now make some decisions about how to proceed. If you have any ideas, you should let the City Commission know.
March 6, 2006
[Editor's Note: The letter below calls attention to the growing inequity between conditions in Hollywood's CRA districts and the rest of the city. Read the letter and let us know what you think about this issue.]
Dear Balancesheet Editor:
Reading Bringing Hollywood Beach Vision Home on your website, in particular, the middle of the 2nd paragraph where it says: “Two code enforcement officers are being hired to work the CRA district exclusively who report directly to the CRA office.” — Started me thinking . . . .
I remember a letter Sara Case, president of Hollywood Council of Civic Associations (HCCA) at the time, sent to city manager C. Benson. The letter was a follow-up to a meeting HCCA held with Cameron Benson on October 20, 2003 regarding needed improvements to code enforcement.
Twelve items were addressed in the letter. One item titled “Enforcement Equality” went like this: “Code enforcement overhaul should be the same throughout the city, so we do not have a ‘Sistrunk- Las Olas’ effect. In addition, the many services the city has to offer with respect to home repair, painting, etc. should work in tandem with code enforcement so that homeowners who may not be able to afford needed repairs are promptly assisted when they receive a violation notice.”
The problem I have now is two code enforcement officers exclusively for the Beach CRA. It STINKS! Three code officer positions [for the rest of the city] were cut when our city manager reorganized the code department. This is not fair to the other neighborhoods city-wide. It hurts my neighborhood, Highland Gardens.
HW Decker
Highland Gardens
Following up on Mr. Decker’s letter…
March 15, 2006
Thank you, HWDecker, for so passionately and clearly stating the problem we are faced with. Yes, the CRA holds funds that would normally go to the entire city. In our particular situation, the CRA is in neighborhoods that are poised to produce some of our greatest tax revenues. The increased taxes will be spent within the CRA boundaries only.
It is clear that central beach is in need of improvements, but it is also very obvious that there are many, many more Hollywood neighborhoods that are in desperate need of improvements as well. Where are the funds for these improvements to come from? I suspect that officials will tell us that once the beach and downtown areas are revitalized, the city will gain as a whole from our “new and improved” business and residential neighborhoods which will lead to an increase in tax revenues all around. However, that is down the road a piece and, I believe, the CRA holds these monies separate for approximately another 18 years!
I encourage you and all residents of Hollywood to continue to examine and raise these important issues with our city officials and with our neighbors. This is the best way I know of to improve our quality of life here in Hollywood, as well as, of course, by voting in local elections.
Laurie Schecter
Hollywood North Beach
Update 2011
The City hired a new Community Development Director in 2009, Victoria Johnson. She arranged extensive meetings with the community before issuing a new improved Adams Street RFP in 2011. Seven proposals were submitted and subsequently reviewed and ranked by a staff committee. A complete update on the status of 2011 Adams Street RFP is on the official city website at this link.
Both 2005 proposals described below have died, unfunded and unbuilt.
July 28, 2005
Lack of due diligence and insider dealing are dogging Hollywood’s downtown development. For one thing, developers lacking solid credentials keep popping up as beneficiaries of city subsidies, and recently we have had two city employees leaving their jobs to sign on with developers of city-sponsored projects. The Adams Street Redevelopment Project falls right in line.
Background
The City of Hollywood recently assembled approximately 3.76 acres on the south side of Adams Street between 22nd and 24th Avenues in South Central Hollywood. The purpose of this acquisition was laudable: to buy out a slumlord and replace truly blighted property with new townhouses that would be affordable by working people.
The City issued an RFP seeking developers interested in designing and building approximately 60 townhouses on land acquired and cleared by the City. The closing date for submission of proposals was June 23, 2005.
Adams Street Affordable Housing
Households eligible for this project must have incomes that do not exceed 80% of the median income for this area and must not spend more than 30% of their income on principal, interest, taxes, and insurance. Following these criteria, affordable townhouses in Hollywood today would sell for not more than $158,000.
The City will not convey the land to the developer, but neither will the developer pay land costs. When the developer sells the townhouses, the City will convey a proportionate fee simple interest in the land to each home buyer.
Among many requirements in the bid documents is one that specifies three letters of reference indicating the developer’s experience in building “affordable housing,” a type of housing that must comply with complex federal requirements. More about these references below.
Only two developers submitted responses to the City’s RFP, and both raise concerns. One developer team has a track record of non-performance and poor performance. The other developer has almost no record in affordable housing, appears to be over-extended, and claims as a partner a Hollywood resident who was on the city payroll at the time the proposal was submitted to the City.
Prospective Developers
One developer team submitting a proposal is Family Affordable Housing, Inc. in partnership with Victory Housing: Gary Posner together with Cindy Meyer.
Victory Housing, at an Aventura location, is headed by Cindy Meyer, a builder and former chair of the Florida Housing Finance Corporation. Though not mentioned in the proposal, in 2002, the State Department of Business and Professional Regulation charged Ms. Meyer with “committing incompetency or misconduct in the practice of contracting” and she was sued by at least one homeowner in a Pasco County project she built and then abandoned. The St. Petersburg Times reported at the time: “Thirteen unfinished homes litter the neighborhood, along with 35 empty lots.” Ms. Meyer’s company, Aquilaco, ” had amassed hundreds of thousands of dollars in debts because of unpaid subcontractors. The federal government also sought $30,000 in back taxes.”
And Gary Posner, the principal of Family Affordable Housing, is the “developer” of the so-called HART condo/retail project on Young Circle, which he originally presented as a way to endow the Hollywood Playhouse. After selling the concept to the City Commission and Downtown CRA and receiving over $800,000 in loans from the City (“secured” by a third mortgage), Posner closed the Playhouse and recently told the City he does not have the money to provide the theater component, a default under his loan agreement with the City.
Posner was bailed out by Cynthia Berman Miller, then director of cultural arts for the City, along with staff of the Hollywood Art and Culture Center, who devised a renovation plan for the Hollywood Performing Arts Center for Posner to use as the theater component of his project which is now being re-worked to include this hastily cobbled plan.
The other Adams Street proposal was submitted by the MG3 collaboration: Gustavo Bogomolni and Marcelo Saiegh teamed up with Cynthia Berman Miller’s new organization, Creative Community Development, Inc. (CCDI). At the time this proposal was submitted, Ms. Miller was a City of Hollywood employee, though she has since resigned from her city job. She is also former director of the Hollywood Art and Culture Center and the driving force behind the Young Circle ArtsPark. (Note: As of this writing, Creative Community Development, Inc. is not a registered corporation in the State of Florida.)
Ms. Miller has no affordable housing development experience but she does have her city contacts and is already working the Adams Street neighborhood (for this project and other possibilities) as both CCDI principal and as a newly established real estate agent in her mother’s company, NewStar Realty, Inc. NewStar opened a Hollywood office on Young Circle in May 2005. While Ms. Miller was still on the city payroll, her husband sought and received a grant from Hollywood’s Downtown CRA for his new art gallery located in the same building with NewStar Realty.
Mr. Bogomolni provides photos of “custom housing” he built in Argentina, but appears to have no affordable housing experience other than a single project in Ft. Lauderdale. He has an astonishing number of housing projects on the drawing board in the Hollywood Lakes Section, most in conceptual stages only and none of them completed except for one single family house at 1152 Hollywood Blvd. (the yellow house with white “wings” on the south side of the boulevard).
Among projects claimed as track record by Bogomolni and his partner Marcelo Saiegh are the following none of which has been completed:
1710 Mayo Street (3 units – townhouses)
2009 Jackson St. (40-unit condo)
1011/1023 N. 17 Ave. (ll units – townhouses)
Golf Village Townhouses at 810 N. 17 Ave. (4 units)
Taylor Condominium at 410 N. Federal Hwy (92 units)
Filmore@the Golf, 416 N. 17 Ave. (9 unit condominium
Villa Italiana Townhouses, 1705 Johnson St. (8 units)
Golf View, Block 54 Hollywood (326 residential units).
Oddly, both of these proposals claim the HART project as part of their “track record.” The Posner-Victory Housing proposal claims the original HART concept – 400 seat theater, several restaurants, charter school, condos, apartments and parking garage as part of its accomplishments. MG3 tacked on to its record a scaled down HART Project listed simply as 450 units – predevelopment status.
The MG3 proposal is skillfully written to include many desirable elements: community charettes, donation of equipment for a neighborhood computer lab, landscaping on the north side of Adams Street to meet neighborhood concerns, etc. But one fact cannot be hidden: lack of experience in the complexities of affordable housing development.
As for the required “three letters of reference demonstrating experience in developing affordable housing,” the MG3 group lists Cameron Benson (Hollywood City Manager), Carleton Moore (Ft. Lauderdale City Commissioner), and Ken Crawford (President of United Neighbors of South Hollywood).
The Posner-Victory Housing group lists Larry Leeds (Director of Planning, City of Dania Beach), Larry Stone, and Brett Zaroff (President of Bankers Mortgage Trust).
What do you think? Are either of these developers suitable for the Adams Street townhouse project? Shouldn’t this key redevelopment be re-bid and advertised widely to garner interest from more qualified developers? Doesn’t South Central Hollywood deserve better — much better? And for that matter, don’t we all, as Hollywood taxpayers?
City staff will be reviewing the two proposals early in September and making their recommendations then to the City Commission.
July 30, 2005
Cynthia Berman-Miller Responds … and So Do We
Dear Editor
Thank you for writing favorably about our proposal for affordable housing at Adams Street i.e. “the MG3 proposal is skillfully written and includes many desirable elements…” But there are a few inaccuracies about our RFP submittal that I would like to correct.
You list Cameron Benson, Hollywood City Manager, as one of our affordable housing references. Actually Mr. Benson is not included here. The reference listed was actually Mr. James Carras, President of the Broward Housing Partnership.
You also failed to mention that one of the consultants working for my company (Creative Community Development Inc) who is heavily involved in this project and listed in the RFP document has a master’s degree in Urban and Regional Planning and has professional experience in affordable housing in her former position as an Affordable Housing Tax Credit Specialist for the Florida Housing Finance Corporation.
Sincerely,
Cynthia Berman-Miller, Principal
Creative Community Development Inc.
Balance Sheet Response
We did not mention Ms. Berman-Miller’s consultant, Lisa Lorbeck, because her experience in affordable housing was limited to checking for compliance in tax-credit rental projects. The Adams Street townhouses, on the other hand, are for homeowners and not a tax credit project. The MG3 proposal’s track record on project-specific affordable housing is paper-thin, the inclusion of Ms. Lorbeck notwithstanding. But also problematic, MG3′s plate is heaped with unfinished and barely-begun projects.
Mr. Benson is listed in the MG3 proposal as a reference in connection with Block 54. We regret that we inadvertently failed to mention Mr. Carras as an additional reference.
Finally, we have learned from Neil Fritz, director of Hollywood’s downtown CRA, that the two developers competing for the Adams Street project have joined forces on the HART project. He tells us that MG3 and Posner (along with Patricia Peretz) are going half and half in a new entity now being created to develop HART.
MG3 Track Record: The Missing Reference
One more note: We spoke with James Carras, the reference Ms. Berman-Miller criticized the Balance Sheet for omitting in our description of the MG3 developers’ proposal. He told us that he has NO KNOWLEDGE of the MG3 developers or Ms. Berman-Miller. He knows only Ms. Lorbeck, a consultant working with Ms. Berman-Miller. She was a recent student he taught at FAU, whom he recommends highly as a capable person who understands the concept of affordable housing. He clearly stated, however, that Ms. Lorbeck is not a developer.
So now we are left a picture of MG3 that includes not only the slimmest track record in affordable housing development, but also one of its partner’s going to some lengths to make things look otherwise.
