Funding OK’d for 355-unit complex

A new 335-unit, affordable rental housing complex and adjacent commercial buildings could be constructed in Gray using $10 million in Community Development Block Grant funds Terrebonne is receiving for recovery from hurricanes Gustav and Ike.

The Terrebonne Parish Council’s Community Development and Planning Committee last week approved Coastal Phoenix Investments of Diamondhead, Miss. to oversee the project.

The development will be called Three Oaks, located at the site of the former Southland Dragways at 4445 West Park Ave.

Besides rental housing, the development will have a golf course with a clubhouse, retail stores, a daycare center, a bank, and exercise room. Homes for sale will be located at the back of the property.

Coastal Investments president Gary Gibbs said the cost to develop the project would be $87 million. That total includes $23 million in community loans and $26 million in tax-exempt bonds.

Coastal Investments will seek federal New Market Tax Credits for the development. That program provides tax credits to companies investing in properties in low-income areas.

Coastal Investments is also seeking tax-exempt financing through the Louisiana Public Facilities Authority. The company is deferring fees back into the property.

“It will take a joint effort between the parish and us to get funds,” Gibbs said.

One hundred and ninety-one of the units will be set aside for people earning 60 percent of the parish’s median household income, he said, and 187 units will be reserved for those earning 80 percent of the median income.

Gibbs said his company had talked with Marriott about constructing a hotel on the property.

He said the complex will have a streetscape and will not look like many other mixed-income developments. The housing units will be built in an Acadian style of architecture with high peaked roofs. Facades will be built to look like single-family units instead of multiple-family housing.

“It won’t look like row housing monotony,” Gibbs said.

Drainage will flow into existing lines.

The development still has to receive Houma-Terrebonne Regional Planning Commission approval, said Parish Planning Director Pat Gordon.

“This is one of the best things to happen to our district,” said Terrebonne Parish Councilwoman Teri Cavalier, whose district contains the development.

Cavalier said the median income in her district is $26,000, which would qualify many in the area to live in the housing units.

“It’s awesome it will have a daycare center,” she said. “It’s a good thing happening.”

Michigan-based DeVere Construction Company is the contractor for the project.

The federal government mandated that Terrebonne expend $10 million on affordable housing out of the $123 million the parish is receiving in CDBG funds for hurricane recovery.

A special committee consisting of three parish officials and representatives from Catholic Housing Services, Nicholls State University and the banking industry selected Coastal Phoenix for the project.

At Wednesday’s regular parish council meeting, Councilman Billy Hebert spearheaded a demand that Coastal Phoenix obtain a letter of credit or other surety on the $10 million CDBG grant.

“If it’s not built, we may have to give back the $10 million … Before we release funds, we ought to have an assurance,” Hebert said.

But Parish President Michel Claudet and Parish Manager Al Levron said the CDBG funds will not be released until the project is in place. Levron said the CDBG program works on cost-reimbursement.

Claudet said the CDBG money is being merged with other funding so that the project will not be only low- to moderate-income housing.

“We have no better project we can have for Terrebonne,” Claudet said. “I don’t know why we would take this action to get on the wrong side of the developers.”

Later he said, “We’re not intending to give them $10 million to run off. These people don’t work with fly-by-night people.”

Williams and Levron said since the CDBG money is federal, the state will monitor the development. Proposal requests for the project included leveraging the $10 million, Williams said.

“The eye on the prize is to make sure at the end of the day that the apartments there will have families in them,” said Councilman Alvin Tillman.

Hebert withdrew his motion.