Village Council approves 2025 budget, exempts senior housing money
- Published: December 11, 2024
In the second-to-last regular Village Council meeting of the year, held Monday, Dec. 2, Council members voted 5-0 in favor of finalizing the $18,102,489 municipal budget for 2025.
As the News reported last month, that budget includes a “nearly balanced” general fund — as described by Village Finance Director Michelle Robinson in a recent memo to Council — which accounts for the necessary appropriations for the primary operating expenses for administrative costs, Council, commissions, public safety and more.
Monday’s meeting was the last opportunity for Council members, as well as the general public, to weigh in on — and potentially modify — the budget before it became codified as an ordinance.
Once again, a number of local residents filled Council Chambers to advocate for the inclusion of funding for ongoing construction costs for an upcoming housing development focused on rental housing for seniors.
Throughout the latter part of the year, local affordable housing nonprofit YS Home, Inc., as well as its supporters, have petitioned Village leadership to include $180,000 in the 2025 budget to help defray phase-two construction costs of The Cascades, a future 32-unit housing development.
Home, Inc. broke ground on the project earlier this fall — marking the beginning of the first of four phases, which entails the construction of the first eight of the proposed 32 units. To date, the Village has granted $159,923 to Home, Inc. for its Cascades project, which includes approximately $58,000 in the waiving of tap fees.
Ahead of the Nov. 4 Village Council meeting, Village Manager Johnnie Burns issued a memo to Village Council members stating he did not support the $180,000 request, and suggested they exclude the request from the 2025 budget.
“It has become evident that Home, Inc. did not adequately budget for the project, leading to their current funding shortfall,” Burns wrote, and added that Village staff had “confirmed that their projections were insufficient.” Owing to that alleged insufficiency, Burns suggested that Home, Inc. either delay the project, reduce the number of Cascades units or implement a phased approach to building the development’s needed infrastructure — the latter of which appeared to be the biggest sticking point for Burns and other leadership.
At the following Council meeting on Monday, Nov. 18, Village Council member Brian Housh proposed to halve the request, and asked to include $90,000 for phase two of The Cascades in the 2025 budget. By a vote of 2–3, Council rejected the inclusion.
At the most recent Council meeting this Monday, and following nearly a dozen public comments from citizens in support of including some financial support from the Village for phase two of The Cascades, Housh made the same request: to amend the budget with an added $90,000 going towards Home, Inc. Again, a 2–3 vote from Council members rejected that request.
“We have been responsive toward every request Home, Inc. has made so far,” Council President Kevin Stokes said on Monday. “This [rejection] is transactional regarding this particular phase. It’s not relational — just transactional.”
Stokes later added: “I’m making a conscious decision to follow Village staff’s advice, but to be clear, I’m open to future conversations about the ways we can support Home, Inc. Declining this particular funding request should not be a wholesale discarding of the past history and relationship we have with Home, Inc.”
While Council members were split on the matter of The Cascades — with the three detractors deferring to the recommendations of Village staff — Council nevertheless passed the 2025 budget unanimously.
The News reached out to YS Home, Inc. Executive Director Emily Seibel following Monday’s Council meeting to see how The Cascades will proceed without the Village’s support for phase two of the development at this point in time.
According to Seibel, it’s “unknown at this time how the project will be impacted or delayed,” and currently, a $180,000 “gap” remains in the approximately $1.9 million budget for the senior housing project.
“As this project is our top priority and commitment,” Seibel wrote in an email to the News, “we will continue to turn over every rock until all sources of gap funding are secured.”
She continued: “That being said, a local layer of funding [would] show public support for the project and go a long way to help secure competitive state funds.”
Seibel noted that Home, Inc. has, thus far, secured $439,000 of the needed $673,000 in funds for The Cascades’ second project — an amount Seibel said is needed for the affordable housing nonprofit to approach the Ohio Housing Finance Agency for approximately $1.2 million in funding next summer, which, as she said, would keep the project on time and within the projected budget.
“We will continue good faith communications with the Village to identify and address any remaining technical questions,” Seibel said. “We are confident that, through collaboration, we can reach a middle-path compromise to keep this long-awaited project moving forward.”
To read more about the particular line items in the 2025 Village budget, see past News reporting at https://www.ysnews.com/?p=112137.
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