A proposal calls for transforming Clearwater's Jasmine Courts into a mixed-income community.
By JENNIFER FARRELL
Published December 30, 2003
CLEARWATER - The Clearwater Housing Authority is planning to replace Jasmine Courts, the sprawling, barracks-style public housing complex on Tanglewood Drive, with bigger, modern apartments and single-family homes.
The $35-million to $50-million project would remake the maze of aging one-story duplexes into a neighborhood filled with subsidized and market-rate housing on 40 acres south of Drew Street. Jacqueline Rivera, executive director of the Housing Authority, even hopes to include space for a small grocery or maybe ice cream and coffee shops.
She envisions a new recreation center with an indoor pool and gym surrounded by sidewalks that actually lead somewhere. Cramped apartments, some with five bedrooms but none larger than 1,200 square feet, would make room for larger units, starting at 1,500 square feet.
In all, 200 apartments and 60 to 80 houses are planned to replace the existing 284 units.
"Right now we want to shoot for the sky and see how far we can get," Rivera said Monday. "We are trying to be very nontraditional."
So far, the Housing Authority, which owns and manages public and affordable housing, has hired an architect, and preliminary sketches are expected next month. Over the next 90 days, authority officials will be crunching numbers and outlining strategies to pay for the project, which could take up to five years to complete.
Roughly half of the complex's 2,000 residents would be eligible to stay, and the authority will pay to relocate the others to alternate subsidized housing, Rivera said.
For now, she wants residents to relax, telling them: "Please don't pack up and move."
Rivera said a recent survey showed 90 percent of Jasmine Courts residents would opt to leave, taking advantage of Section 8 vouchers, which provide 60 to 70 percent subsidies for private rentals.
On Monday, Lottie Saylor, a 71-year-old grandmother who lives in Jasmine Courts, applauded the planned changes.
"I think what they're going to do is going to be nice," she said. "It needs to be done."
But Saylor, who said she has lived in Housing Authority properties for more than three decades, doesn't plan on staying to see the new landscape. She'd rather live in another public housing complex closer to downtown, where it's easier to get around.
"I can live most anywhere," she said. "Way out here it's inconvenient if you don't have a car."
Lori Clark moved with her husband, Christopher, and their three children to Jasmine Courts in September. He lays tile and she stays home with 2-year-old Shaine. In 10 years of marriage, the couple have never lived in the same home for more than two years.
Clark said she wants to buy one of the new homes when they are built so Michael, 8, and Addreahna, 6, can stay in nearby Eisenhower Elementary School. "I'd like them to go back," she said. "They've never actually done that."
Clark, 34, is one year away from earning a degree to teach elementary school. She worries about having to move when demolition begins for the new project.
"It scares me," she said. "I have no way to save money. My husband makes just enough money to afford for us to stay here."
Rivera said construction will be done in phases, and the Housing Authority will be sensitive to residents' needs.
"This is not something anyone is taking lightly," she said, adding later: "Change is terrifying, whether it's pretty or positive or not."
The Housing Authority has worked to destigmatize housing for low-income families, and Rivera sees the new project as an extension of the agency's mixed-income goal. The idea is to mix low-income families with people of means so no one can distinguish who gets help and who doesn't.
No tax dollars will be used for the project, Rivera said. Instead, the authority is looking at seeking tax credits, bonds and loans.
The Housing Authority anticipates the new complex will eventually turn a profit.
"We're trying to get it to feel more like a neighborhood," Rivera said. "We're trying to prove that you can do this responsibly and carefully without federal subsidy."
