Barratt is the owner of the lot that’s designated for the low-income house. The reason it’s just sitting there is because they are in bankruptcy court, which has to wrap up sooner or later. Bank of America doesn’t have anything to do with the lot being highlighted, but they are actively soliciting offers for Nantucket 2.
We’ll have more on this story:
we should give the government more control. they are so responsible with all their power.
whiner vote = that city dude that has taken the situation hostage. the city could care less about all this. they have no motivation or incentive to fix this siutation. their stand is that they are just the rule makers and enforcers, no matter how stupid the “rules” are that they make up.
i love how we have affordable housing in a beach community. most of us work all our lives to earn that privilege to live here.
government power run amuck…..
My parents live on Wilstone, which is right around the corner. Every time I go to visit…I always have to check out Nantucket! What a disaster.
I remember when they were selling them. It was all roses and $$$….they said to me that the houses would never go down in value. So much for that.
The thing that gets me is how small the lots are for how big the house is! It just doesn’t look right. Also, the build quality is not that great. It was very underwhelming….the layouts are strange…small roooms that you can’t really use.
As for Nantucket 2? I can tell you right here and right now that teenagers and other undesirables use drugs in those abandoned homes. Apparently, it’s a good place to smoke a joint. I’ve seen it.
As your driving into Nantucket one, the third house on your left is the strangest of all. The kitchen/family room is upstairs with the master down. This one is very ugly and in your face and the lot is TINY. And you overlook this abandoned lot with this awful ‘home’ in the middle of it. I don’t know who lives in that house, but they’re a strange bunch. Hippies and the like. But you do have a peek ocean view and nice sunset views…just ignore the lot behind you.
Nantucket…always fascinating.
I prefer Jim Kunstler’s term for “train wreck”, although it’s not PC or PG by any means.
It seems to me these BMR designations result from a contract signed between the City and the builder. A bankruptcy court might be able to nullfy the contract.
A new developer could come in and build market rate houses on these lots. To mollify the City, the builder could negotiate building the BMR units in a much less desirable location but still within the city limits. The City gets to count the BMR units toward their affordable housing goal and the developer makes a nice profit. The City also gets to tell everyone that it’s not their fault, because the bankruptcy court did it.
That ego/ecocentric idiot working for the City of Encinitas needs to have his ideological head examined (and I hope he’s reading this).
He’s holding out for an affordable lot to be built while the project’s half remnants are wasting away into potential venues for crime and other unsavory activities. How much is that going to cost city coffers to police? Fire hazard as well?
Heck, they ought to designate the unfinished properties as sanctuary housing for illegal aliens — uhhhh, guest workers — allowing no more than 30 people per home. I’m sure the “enlightened”, liberal neighbors would welcome this kind of “diversity”, wouldn’t they…?
I haven’t seen “hippies” used as a slam in a while. LOL. It’s like a bad acid flashback.
common-sense – That low income lot has ZERO to do with the unfinished Nantucket 2 project. Completely different projects/ownerships/restrictions/etc. its restrictions are tied to the Nantucket 1 project.
How come no one buying a $1mm+ home thought to ask about the lot, read the disclosures, and use their ‘common sense’ when they made the biggest purchase of their life???? Wait, I know, real esatate only goes up and everyone was a genius investor 4 short years ago and could do no wrong.
Homeowners should go buy a weedwacker and go to town, seems easy to me….but I bet they don’t even know how to start one up as its likely beneath their status to maintain their own yards.
Except I’m sure the hippies can cultivate some greenery of their own.
Senate leaders late Tuesday cleared the way for Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, to offer an amendment allowing mortgage bankers to originate residential loans to small business owners with flexible payment schedules that reflect seasonal changes in cash flows.
clearfund wrote: “That low income lot has ZERO to do with the unfinished Nantucket 2 project. Completely different projects/ownerships/restrictions/etc. its restrictions are tied to the Nantucket 1 project”
Ahhh, so the city is only tying up the C of O for the Phase I leftover, but Phase II is a developer BK?…in which case Another Investor offers an alternate, viable solution.
Oops. Public apology offered.
The city just needs to let someone move into the empty house and fix it up. ( the owner if he is not bk yet ) Then they need to cancel the low income housing project because the state and the banks are broke at the moment. Then the state should seize the second development and bulldoze it and sell the land. Problems solved. Leaving things the way they are just leaves Encinitas residents in blight.
Simple, give it to Habitat for Humanity – they`ll get it built in a matter of weeks.
Look at Nantucket’s parcel map and zoom in close (such as on redfin). There are 9 lots on each side of the project, each half has a tiny/BMR lot. On Nantucket 2, a 4th large slab is poured, but framing did not start. Why? The City must have required the 4th home of 9 to be the BMR to try and avoid this N1 problem. On the parcel map, the tiny N2 lot faces Sheridan Road and appears to be a rear yard on the first shell wrapped in plastic. That’s no yard – that’s the 2nd BMR lot.
Offer whoever holds the affordable housing lot a chance to build the affordable housing. If they don’t agree, seize it by eminent domain and give it to the owner of the house with no Certificate of Occupancy. Tell them all they have to do is build the affordable unit(s) and they’ll get their CoO. Or they can sell the package (affordable lot and house with no CoO) to someone who will.
Cube-The bankrupt home builder still owns the affordable housing lot. Apparently, the bankruptcy is still in the courts. The problem here is, the cost to purchase the lot plus construction costs will almost certainly be more than they will be allowed to see the affordable house for. I doubt the city will eminent domain the lot to help the owner of the existing house.
The bankrupt builder left a lot of subs / suppliers in the wind, who should now have mechanics liens loaded up on the two BMR lots. The BK trustee may not be able to sell the lots without clearing the liens, but who has priority in BK court – lien claimants or BA creditors? Subs would need a ‘relief of stay’ from BK court to forclose on the BMR lots. Geotpf is right, though, after the cost of building the BMR home (probably a modular unit) the lot has no ‘real’ value except to Joe Schmo that cannot move into the former model he bought on the courthouse steps and whoever ends up buying N2 from the bank.
The **investor** (from what I understand) who bought the house lacking the the COO on the courthouse steps is NOT owed anything by anyone. That’s one of the risks of buying at the courthouse steps, and it was the buyer’s job to do due diligence on the property.
If the investor wants to move into the house or flip it, he can buy the low-income lot and build a house (at a guaranteed loss). Still, he will probably end up breaking even or lose a few hundred grand on the total deal. Nobody owes him a profit.
The city needs to enforce the rules regarding density bonuses or else every builder/developer will pull the same stunt — build all the profitable houses, then BK when it comes time to build the affordable unit.
Of course, the city could just deny all requests for density bonuses, if that’s what the developers/builders really want.
1) Anyone who lives in that neighborhood…if you are reading, get a reassessment of your house now! Lower your property taxes and punish the stupid government workers who threw out their common sense long ago.
2) Who was pushing for more government involvement in our lives? Look at this scenario…designed to make things “fair”, ended up screwing a few people.
Jeeman,
You’ve got good principles but don’t know the story.
Who was pushing for this this? David Meyer of the Ecke family and Barratt American ally. Meyer did the subdivision map and Barratt built the houses. They love the low income density bonus law. It’s just like monopoly the game. They get a big enough parcel and they can build hotels. If you own just one lot you can’t. The cover story is the low income housing unit, which cost peanuts in comparison to the revenues generated by adding additional full market rate lots to the subdivision.
They did not have to take the density bonus.
Barratt and Meyer already pulled out all the money from the density bonus. Meyer got more rich and the city staff is getting blamed.
Barratt president and Meyer are huge players in the development machine. The regulation loopholes they created is their Frankenstein and they LOVE it, don’t swallow their propaganda.