School ADA funds could go to business development
Councilman Bruce Tyler proposes that a portion of proceeds from city property sales be used to develop businesses in RVA. But could it end up shortchanging efforts to bring city schools into compliance with the American with Disabilities Act?
It certainly wasn’t the endless supply of free coffee provided by City Councilman Bruce Tyler that packed the Mary Munford Elementary School cafeteria early Saturday morning two weeks ago with sleepy-eyed Near West End residents.
Rather, it was the fate of the turn-of-the-century Westhampton Elementary School building (the dominant architectural feature on the corner of Libbie and Patterson avenues) that had so many in this community stirred up.
“I haven’t had my first cup of coffee yet, so forgive me,” says the as-always impeccably coiffed Tyler, offering his gathered constituents a self-deprecating joke meant to infer that he might not yet be on his game as the meeting starts.
Unlikely. Despite his purported low reserves of caffeine, it is clear Tyler is operating on enough juice to know how to disarm this crowd. This meeting, he tells them, will NOT focus on the Westhampton Building – with its beautiful art-deco influenced detailing and its deeply undervalued city assessed value of $7 million – but rather on the future of the entire area.
Murmurs of vague displeasure pass through the room, but Tyler keeps the meeting steered along a friendly course – there’s free coffee and pastries, after all.
The Westhampton Building is just the first of many city-owned surplus properties for sale that Tyler would like to use to seed a proposed economic development fund aimed at attracting and supporting businesses to the city. The councilman seeks to establish the fund in a new way – not the slush-fund approach of the past where the city freely passed out money and tax abatements to developers promising big returns only to find themselves and the taxpayers they represent on the hook for soaring debt and disappointing project results. Instead, he sees it working almost like a line of credit.
Tyler would like to see 25 percent of the proceeds of all city property sales to go to the fund.
“It won’t be a gift, it would be a fund that would have to be paid back to the city so we could grow this fund,” says Tyler, even envisioning the city becoming a profit-sharing partner. “For instance, if a developer comes to the area and he needs capital to finish out a building, when the building is sold or as the payments go down, we would get a return on investment.”
But there’s a hitch. As currently proposed, Tyler’s proposal may shortchange the most vulnerable city residents – not only children with handicaps who attend Richmond Public Schools, but the roughly 23,000 students who attend schools in buildings, many of which lack modern libraries, computer labs, athletic facilities, and adequate and accessible playground equipment.
Two years ago, then-Council President Bill Pantele pushed through an ordinance that sets aside all proceeds from the sale of surplus school buildings to pay for capital improvements in the schools, which would include the cost of bringing the schools into compliance with the nearly 20-year-old Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
Pantele’s ordinance came at a time when former Mayor L. Douglas Wilder refused to allocate any money to pay for the tens of millions of dollars needed to bring Richmond’s 50-plus school buildings into compliance with both state and federal laws and the terms of the settlement agreement of a lawsuit brought in U.S. District Court by parents and children with disabilities against the city school system.
Tyler’s plan to partly undermine Pantele’s ordinance isn’t raising hackles yet, but schools officials and advocates for the disabled are cautious and want to know more.
“I have reached out to Councilman Tyler to get more information,” says School Board Chairwoman Kimberly Bridges, who says she only recently became aware of Tyler’s proposal and is working on a time to meet with Tyler to discuss his proposal. “I would want to find out how this would impact our ADA funding.”
Carol A.O. Wolf, an advocate for the disabled and former School Board member who pushed hard during her time on the board to bring city schools into compliance with ADA, credits Tyler with pushing through a $25 million Council plan to fund ADA improvements. But, she says she remains skeptical of a plan that might take any other funding resources away from school ADA projects and other capital needs of the city schools.
“I’m relieved to hear he’s only talking about 25 percent here,” Wolf says. “I think we need to get the ADA improvements made in the schools and that most people know that the economic development that will do the greatest good for Richmond is to make all of our schools models of excellence that are 21st century learning environments.”
Wolf’s concern is in part due to the possibility that a desire to feed the fund could lead to an overly hasty sale of historically significant school properties that – like Westhampton Building — are worth far more than their apparent market or city assessment values. Valuable historic tax credits – amounting to as much as 45-percent of the value of the properties – are only available to whatever parties move forward to renovate the buildings, and with past school sales these potential credits were not factored as part of the sale price.
“I was really surprised to hear now with the properties coming available – properties that carry substantial historic tax credits that are gold to developers – that he now wants to take back the money promised in the ordinance,” Wolf says.
For his part Tyler says he’s ready to talk – and possibly willing to make compromises like a sunset clause for school sales that would expire after the renovations imposed by the school district’s ADA settlement are completed.
“I think it’s reasonable to have the conversation,” says Tyler, hammering on the bad deals Richmond taxpayers have continually been saddled with when good economic development ideas have gone wrong. Besides, he says, “three years ago when [Pantele’s] ordinance was introduced, there was no [ADA] money going into Richmond Public Schools. That has changed and I think it’s fair to look at it in a different light – and we’re going to look at some of this money for different purposes.”
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Notice: Comments that are not conducive to an interesting and thoughtful conversation may be removed at the editor’s discretion.
Seems to me if you help economic development, you make the city more desirable to live, grow the tax base and improve the schools that way right?
Seems to me there is enough pie for ADA and economic development to get a slice.
I am strongly against more corporate welfare at a time when many of our school buildings are in such bad shape and even illegal under federal ADA law. We have already seen how private developments like Center Stage siphon off public funding from public priorities.
You got it bassakwards. Fix the schools first. Business development will come. Look at what Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools have managed.
I love that RVAnews is covering this kind of thing. Thanks Chris Dovi!
i’m not really a numbers person, but it doesn’t take a mathematician to see that something doesn’t seem to add up here. why is tyler’s agenda even up for discussion when we have, for two decades, failed to bring the city schools into ADA compliance? richmond city’s students with disabilities deserve more than clever re-distribution of funds intended to give them equal access to education.
It’s fine to say “fix the school’s first” in order to draw development to the city, but the building aren’t the problem with RPS, they’re just a convenient whipping post for those whose bag it is to defend the status quo.
What do you mean, tvnewsbadge, when you say:
“but the building aren’t the problem with RPS, they’re just a convenient whipping post for those whose bag it is to defend the status quo.”
???
@3- CMS schools just laid off 600 employees.. maybe not the best example.
@6- I agree. The buildings are a problem but the biggest issue in my mind is the lack of interest in improving the schools as a whole by the school board. They seem to think status quo is A.O.K.
@Chris- I can agree with your overall point however the historic/rehabilitation tax credits(HTCs) are rarely worth their full value (e.g. 45%). I have never seen their value included in the appraisal of a historic property as a consideration on the value for the sale of the property. I’d argue the city is better off selling the property at an appropriate value (based on an appraisal) versus trying to jack up the price because the property could potentially qualify for HTCs (potentially being the key word). The city is a winner in the end if the property is rehab’d using HTCs, with the increase in taxes from a business occupying the building, property values, etc.
Mr. Newsbadge, I can assure you that, while RPS has MANY issues and problems, the buildings are absolutely a large part of the problem.
There are grants available which can help bring many of these buildings- particularly the older, more historical buildings- up to code. But that would require someone @ RPS to pay attention and work proactively.
#9 The anonymous Area Man has an interesting hypothesis. It certainly would help explain the deterioration in graduation rates. It’s pegged to the deterioration of the buildings.
If there is one thing I am 100% certain of, it is that over time, there is a 100% chance of infrastructure deterioration.
However, I didn’t know that natural environmental deterioration of inanimate assets was a proximate cause for academic program challenges. Thanks! I learned something today.
I don’t have kids in the RPS system, but if I did, the state of the buildings alone would make me run for the counties. I know it has an effect on RPS students who see how other locality schools compare.
The mentality of putting money and attention on downtown corporate welfare schemes OVER that of public school needs has been in place for as long as have been in Richmond. Over a billion dollars has gone into the schemes and yet both downtown and our schools still have miles to go. The lack of progress in schools is disheartening and borders on illegal. The buildings are the clearest example of that. Open High is declared one of the best schools in the country, yet it stll lacks an elevator addition and Center Stage gets millions in public subsidy.
Everyone can point fingers, but it’s up to ALL citizens to demand change.
hmmmmm……..Just curious … might there be another entity or group of individuals interested in securing the Patrick Henry building in order to turn it into condominiums?
Perhaps the recalcitrance of the RPS administration and the School Board has more to do with *another* offer than it does with the Patrick Henry group?
I recall hearing at one point that Jim Ukrop and Harold Fitrer (former HR director and Chief of Staff at RPS) wanted to obtain the building and provide low-cost housing for new teachers.
Could this be part of the reason the schools are playing “stall ball”?
When will the leaders of Richmond government and schools ever realize that serious change must come if we hope to ever make these schools right for the children and the community?
Mr. Mallard, is it your contention that the basic upkeep of school buildings and their core infrastructure is not a contributing factor to academic success? If so, well, as bad as their current rep may be, I’m happy for the people of the 4th that your election campaign was roughly as successful as your sarcasm attempts.
Spend some time inside some of RPS’ schools. Not just an hour here or an hour there, with an admin person at your side the whole time. When the toilets don’t flush at a “crown jewel” middle school, or the electrical is so outdated that plugging in a laptop and LCD projector blows a breaker or hoping and praying on that first 80-degree day that the 35-year old window A/C units will make it another spring…these are the realities in a lot of our schools. These items might strike you as “natural environmental deterioration” but I suspect they strike those of us who’ve actually dealt with these issues as a little bit more serious.
Ry,
Maggie L. Walker Governor’s School for Government and International Studies, 1000 W. Lombardy, is the best counter-argument to your suggestion that the city would be “better off selling the property at an appropriate value (based on an appraisal) versus trying to jack up the price because the property could potentially qualify for HTCs (potentially being the key word).”
The total costs for the rehabilitation of Maggie L. Walker for use as the Governor’s School was estimated at $20 million. Of that amount, at least $8 million was contributed by First Union National Bank, the equity investor, in exchange for the allocation of state and federal historic tax credits.
http://www.dhr.virginia.gov/pdf_files/Facts%20about%20Tax%20Credit%20Program.PDFhttp://www.dhr.virginia.gov/tax_credits/tax_credit.htm
Many thanks to Chris Dovi and the RVA news team for covering this!
What a wonderful Easter present! An anonymous ad hominem attack!
The point I tried to (unsuccessfully – as noted) make is that the board is responsible for holding the administration accountable for all decisions – which do include infrastructure maintenance. RPS circa 1995 – 1997 was a decent system that graduated 75% of its students and sent most of those on to 2 and 4 year colleges. The facts since then do not speak as high.
To speak directly to your citation of a 35 year old A/C system – deterioration happens. Resource allocation decisions must be made between A/C systems and $50k convocations, or out of jurisdiction overnight retreats. It would not surprise me to learn of many more such instances.
I don’t celebrate Easter, Mr. Mallard- perhaps a belated Ides of March present instead?
On this much I think we can agree: the allocation decisions have been poor, to put it graciously.
Not much time here — Something is very fishy here. Siphoning money out of schools to pay for business subsidies doesn’t pass the smell test. Does Mr. Tyler have someone in mind to take advantage of a 25% discount on the old Community High building? If he wants the building sold, fine. Let’s put the whole amount into the school capital improvement fund and make it an honest transaction.
Remember what happened the last time a school building was sold to a private developer: Robin Miller picked up Robert E. Lee Elementary for about a quarter of its market value. This idea seems reminiscent of how Lee was sold; don’t let Mr. Tyler snow you here.
If Mr.Tyler is interested in incubating business development, perhaps he can work on lifting some of the regulations that discourage start ups, beginning with unrealistic parking requirements. The capital will follow good schools and realistic regulatory enforcement.
Robin Miller shared with me when I was on the School Board that the LAST thing this School Board should be doing was selling off the old schools and the land beneath them. He allowed as to how such advice coming from someone who had clearly benefitted from the system selling off an old school might sound odd, but he reminded me that he was still a city resident and someone who wanted the schools to make smart decisions about its resources, decisions that would in the long-run benefit the schools and the city. Thanks to Robin’s advice and that of other experts I consulted on historic tax credits, I did my best to advise the board on the importance of providing wise stewardship of the school system’s resources.
Therefore, I submit that the best counter-argument to Ry’s suggestion that the city would be “better off selling the property at an appropriate value (based on an appraisal) versus trying to jack up the price because the property could potentially qualify for HTCs(potentially being the key word),” sits at 1000 W. Lombardy — the Maggie L. Walker Governor’s School for Government and International Studies.
The total costs for the rehabilitation of Maggie L. Walker for use as the Governor’s School was estimated at $20.65 million. Of that amount, $8 million was contributed by First Union National Bank, the equity investor, in exchange for the allocation of state and federal historic tax credits.
To learn more about how the historic tax credits can help our schools and city:
http://www.dhr.virginia.gov/tax_credits/tax_credit.htm
And here:
http://www.dhr.virginia.gov/pdf_files/Prosperity%20through%20Preservation.pdf
http://www.dhr.virginia.gov/tax_credits/tax_credit.htm
Ry, The best counter-argument to your suggestion that the city would be “better off selling the property at an appropriate value (based on an appraisal) versus trying to jack up the price because the property could potentially qualify for HTCs(potentially being the key word),” sits at 1000 W. Lombardy — the Maggie L. Walker Governor’s School for Government and International Studies.
The total costs for the rehabilitation of Maggie L. Walker for use as the Governor’s School was estimated at $20.65 million. Of that amount, $8 million-plus was contributed by First Union National Bank, the equity investor, in exchange for the allocation of state and federal historic tax credits.
http://www.dhr.virginia.gov/tax_credits/tax_credit.htm
In a message dated 4/3/2010 12:12:24 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, WOLFIES@aol.com writes:
Ry, The best counter-argument to your suggestion that the city would be “better off selling the property at an appropriate value (based on an appraisal) versus trying to jack up the price because the property could potentially qualify for HTCs(potentially being the key word),” sits at 1000 W. Lombardy — the Maggie L. Walker Governor’s School for Government and International Studies.
The total costs for the rehabilitation of Maggie L. Walker for use as the Governor’s School was estimated at $20.65 million. Of that amount, $8 million-plus was contributed by First Union National Bank, the equity investor, in exchange for the allocation of state and federal historic tax credits.