Without even reading beyond the first paragraph of the Hour’s report I knew I could guess who were the council members who were involved in the verbal smackdown that stemmed from the banal topic of affordable housing. I guessed Matt Miklave and Mike Coffey were at it again, but it turned out to be Matt Miklave and Nick Kydes, along with a new entrant into the Norwalk Thunderdome, Phylis Bolden. Oh, how I wish I was there (not.) From Robert Koch’s article:
Monday night’s Planning Committee meeting, by some accounts, nearly came to blows, as members disagreed bitterly over the issue of affordable housing within Wall Street redevelopment.
Committee Democrats, including Chairman Matthew T. Miklave, blame Republican Nicholas D. Kydes for the heated exchange.
“What I heard (Kydes) say is that affordable housing is the same as low-income housing and led to undesirable neighborhoods, and to the same kind of economic conditions of undesirable sections of downtown Hartford and Bridgeport. I personally took issue with these comments,” Miklave said Tuesday. “I told Mr. Kydes that I found his comments to be offensive, and he began to shout me down and would not recognize that he was out of order. I asked him to leave the meeting and he refused to do so.”
Hrmm, Miklave took offense, yet was it only last week that he was accusing the Council of discriminating against low income students by questioning how the BOE spends ECS dollars? Miklave sure likes to push the buttons of most of the council, hence the rather easy exercise of tagging him as one of the Thunderdome participants. The sad thing is, baiting and making outrageous statements seems to be his only bag of tricks at these meetings and like listening to the same old MP3 tune, it gets old.
But let’s return to the article:
At one point, he threw his hand down on the table and stood up next to me like he was going to throw a punch,” Miklave said.
Kydes labeled that assessment of Monday night’s exchange “crap.”The Republican said he — not Miklave nor Democratic Councilwoman Phyllis Y. Bolden — was “verbally assaulted” for sharing his thoughts on affordable housing within Wall Street redevelopment.
“We had a little blowout,” Kydes said Tuesday. “I was vocally assaulted by two people. Phyllis called me a racist, and I stood and said, ‘I object to you assaulting me this way vocally.’ I was not going to take it, especially when I came from Greece … and had to go through prejudice.”
Holy crap, batdude, Kydes was called a racist., but he claims he’s not because he’s Greek. Pot meet Cypriots, but thankfully Kydes didn’t mention that, and so we are left with trying to identify what comment said by whom set off this whole sparring match.
The exchange came after Munro W. Johnson, senior development project manager for the Norwalk Redevelopment Agency, outlined aspects of the draft land-disposition agreement between the city and POKO Partners LLC, the selected developer for the Isaacs Street portion of Wall Street.
“Only 20 percent of the units are required, in the land-disposition agreement, to be affordable. But because of the developer’s intended financing (plan), we anticipate that number will go up to 33 percent,” Johnson said. “Councilman Kydes thought that the level was 40 percent. We clarified that later.”
Rental units would be targeted at four-member families with incomes between $60,000 and $70,000. Ownership units would be for families with incomes “in the vicinity of $90,000,” Johnson said Tuesday.
Phyllis Y. Bolden, also on the Planning Committee, said she was “very disgusted” Monday night by Kydes’ repeated use of the term “low-income.”
Yeah, I’d be disgusted too if someone kept confusing low-income with affordable housing which is neither low-income or affordable considering the wages one needs to “afford” the large expansive units planned.
“He doesn’t have to want 40 percent affordable housing. He’s entitled to his opinions,” Bolden said. “But when you start saying ‘low income,’ of course I’m going to take offense, because African Americans fall in that income bracket. The way he said it was so ugly. He said, ‘It won’t be the right foot traffic with low-income people. The discrimination and the racist tone bothered me.”
Miklave said tying Norwalk with the inner cities of Hartford and Bridgeport, with their “substantial minority populations,” is at the very least “racially insensitive” and, at most, an “overtly a racist comment.” Affordable units within the Wall Street development are not low-income housing, but housing for working families, teachers, cops, firefighters and nurses aides, he said.
Well kiddees, if someone had bothered to remind the panel what the defintion of “affordable housing” was instead of using the ambiguous workforce housing, maybe then everyone would know what they were talking about, or at least arguing about. But maybe that was the point.
Kydes, however, said 40 percent affordable housing — or even a third affordable housing — is “not the right balance” for Wall Street.
“That is way too much. I don’t believe that that’s the proper ratio we should have in an area we’re trying to redevelop — especially downtown Norwalk — and attract businesses and people who are going to be spending money in restaurants,” Kydes said. “And besides, we’re over our quota of 10 percent. Towns like Wilton, Westport and Darien hardly have any affordable housing.”
Kydes last year pressed for an additional tier of affordable housing within the Reed Putnam redevelopment project in South Norwalk. He praised aiming 5 percent of the housing units there at those making at or less than 100 percent of the area median income — now $111,000 for a family of four. Kydes said he does not consider households earning $110,000 to be “rich people.”
Funny how Kydes is concerned with the property rights of the developer all of a sudden. If 40% is too much, what about 100% luxury condos, is that too not the right balance? For the next Council meeting, I plan to bring popcorn.
source: The Hour, Affordable housing debate ends in quarrel at committee meeting, By ROBERT KOCH, July 18, 2007
