HOW VISIONARY?
Carol Ornelas of Visionary Home Builders came all the way from Stockton, Calif. to appear before the Bishop City Council on Monday. While Councilmembers appreciated Ms. Ornelas making the trek, it didn’t stop them from getting a little snarky.
After all, the City was instrumental in helping Visionary acquire a 3.5-acre parcel off MacIver Street for workforce housing development (“The Silver Peaks Project”). But that was five years ago, and as you can see from the photo below, no progress has been made.
The reason Ornelas visited is because she needs the city to participate in Visionary’s latest grant application.
According to Bishop City Manager Deston Dishion, Visionary is applying for a $36 million AHSC (Affordable Housing and Sustainable Communities) grant and needs the town’s participation in the transportation component.
But what odds would you really given on any funding coming through in the wake of the L.A. fires?
Dishion said five years ago, the City helped Visionary acquire the land via a double escrow because the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) was not permnitted to sell the land directly to a private entity.
At the time, representations were made that this was a slam dunk, a done deal. Funding was in the bag! Bishop Councilman Stephen Muchovej recalls asking about whether or not a right-of-first refusal had been written into the contract, but … this was a done deal, right? Who needs that?
He was a rookie Councilman at the time, and the right-of-first-refusal got lost in the swirl. “I won’t make that mistake again,” he says.
In essence, Visionary had taken a flyer. It had purchased the property for a little over $1 million, submitted a bunch of grant applications for some “free” state and fed money and had struck out.
This latest grant app is one more flyer.
As Muchovej says, the business model for developers like Visionary involves providing a certain number of units for those of very low income.
“It makes me question … whether or not private developers would do a better job. It concerns me that professionals making a decent wage wouldn’t qualify [to live there].”
“The City would definitely buy back the land at the purchase price,” he continued. The Catch-22 is that it would then have to be advertised to workforce housing developers like Visionary before private developers could even get a sniff at it.
One ray of hope. The last time, IMACA served as Visionary’s non-profit partner. This time around, it’s Eastern Sierra Community Housing (ESCH), which has a bit more expertise in this arena.
ESCH Executive Director Patricia Robertson told Council that Carol Ornelas has been a mentor to her (suggesting Ms. Ornelas is a person of character and this hasn’t all been a snow job). “And if you don’t apply, someone else will take that money for their community.”
And, she added, sitting on property for five years waiting for things to fall into place is not unheard of – ESCH sat on the Access Apartment property in Mammoth for seven years until project construction finally commenced last year
Current plans for the “Silver Peaks Project” call for 60 workforce housing units and 16 for-sale units on the 3.5 acre site – a density of approximately 22 units per acre.
Odds and ends
Interim Tri-County Fair CEO Mike Francesconi gave his quarterly report to Bishop’s Council on Monday.
He said 26 events are programmed for the Fairgrounds this year, including all the usual suspects.
There will be one new event of note, a three-day Harley Davidson event in May.
The Fair Board, stripped of its seats and power during the Jen McGuire resignation saga, remains inactive.
And here’s an interesting one. Will Wadelton has officially replaced Matt Kingsley as District 5 Supervisor (representing southern Inyo) but the current board did not give Wadelton one of the two Supervisorial assignments to the Great Basin Unified Air Pollution Control District Board.
Instead, those seats were taken by Board Chair Scott Marcellin and Supervisor Jen Roeser, who is a lessee of LADWP and clearly is saddled with conflict of interest.
Retired Supervisor Matt Kingsley said Wadelton should be on the Board because it affects the communities he represents.
In public comment Tuesday, Mel Joseph, Environmental Director for the Lone Pine Shoshone Tribe, said bluntly, “This is a complete representation disaster in the making.”
