Nancy Grabko of Community Fundraising Solutions (CFS) gave a housing report to the Cook County-Grand Marais Economic Development Authority (EDA) at the Tuesday, June 11 EDA meeting. CFS provides housing program administration for the EDA, and Grabko questioned the recent Arrowhead Economic Opportunity Agency (AEOA) proposal for a housing project in Cook County.
Tofte senior housing still on the table
Grabko and EDA Board Members Hal Greenwood and Don Davison met with Paul James and Jim King of the Tofte Town Board and Dick Grabko and Gary Lamppa of Community Development Resources (CRD) on May 30 to discuss the development of what Nancy Grabko said would be “market rate senior housing.”
Greenwood said Tofte is considering gifting land at Birch Grove Community Center for the project. Funding from the Iron Range Resources Board and area foundations would be sought for infrastructure improvements.
Nancy Grabko said CRD proposes a 5 percent developers fee. She said this is the average fee charged for these types of projects.
Concerns regarding AEOA affordable housing idea
Thediscussionofa5percentdeveloper’s fee for the potential Birch Grove project led to another look at last month’s decision by the EDA to ask Leah Hall of AEOA to look for funding for a potential affordable housing project in the Cedar Grove Business Park.
Board member Don Davison noted that the CRD proposal for Tofte from Dick Grabko and Gary Lamppa was much more reasonable than the AEOA’s proposed 10 percent development fee. “That cuts the cost of the project in half,” said Davison.
EDA Board Chair Mark Sandbo said, “The housing project discussed with AEOA at the last meeting is not a done deal. It all needs to be ironed out.”
Grabko shared financial data showing the amount of housing funds granted to the Arrowhead region over the last 22 years. She pointed out that over $15 million had been awarded but only $628,000 had gone to Cook County. Of that, Grabko said, $150,000 had been secured by the EDA to help county residents in the last three years. “What this tells me is that the EDA has done a good job. This is enough to make our public ask the question why were we left out?”
Because of AEOA’s seeming to ignore Cook County’s needs for two decades, Grabko said, she has concerns about AEOA completing an affordable housing project for the EDA with a 10 percent developer’s fee. “The going rate is 5 percent. This would be a $2 million project. The AEOA would walk away with $200,000,” said Grabko.
She added, “I really have issue with having housing discussed in a meeting after I left the meeting. I’m extremely disappointed.”
In other business:
. Grabko said the EDA had received $18,299 to cover administrative costs to date for her company’s work in facilitating the various grants and projects under way in Cook County. She said she anticipates that the EDA will receive at least another $6,000. The money received goes into the EDA’s housing fund coffers for projects.
. Grabko said CFS has updated its list of contractors eligible to work on housing projects. She said there were contractors on the list whose licenses were not current. Grabko said they have been removed. She said there are now nine contractors on the EDA’s list. “We always want to expand that,” she said.
The housing approved contractors are Higher Mark Construction, Irvin Builders, Mjolnir Construction, Nace Hagemann Construction, Boreal Craft, SDW Construction, Smith Construction, North Shore Builders of Grand Marais, and Arktikos Custom Builders.
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