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Remaking Central Park

Done right, the latest Central Park Village plan could give better opportunities and housing for Tampa's poor and transform a gateway to downtown.

This needs to be the year the city of Tampa gives 1,300 of its poorest residents a better place to live than the slum called Central Park Village. Officials are negotiating with developer Bill Bishop to raze the public housing project and build a master-planned community. With the right guarantees, the project could provide more opportunities for the poor and transform the northeast gateway to downtown.

Bishop's plan is the fourth in five years to remake Central Park but the most promising. The government would provide Central Park's 28-acre site and a range of tax credits and other incentives, which Bishop would combine with other property to create a 60-acre community of townhomes, condos, shops and parks. The last two proposals failed over financing and housing set-asides, but Bishop and public officials learned from those mistakes. Bishop is being more candid, and officials are doing a better job protecting the public's interests.

The deal hinges on three big things: How much housing Bishop will provide to displaced Central Park residents, what incentives the government will offer in return and how much money the development will spin off for an affordable housing trust. At this stage, with local officials documenting the level of poverty in the downtown core and the need for housing, it is important Mayor Pam Iorio keep in mind how much leverage this valuable land gives her in negotiations.

Iorio also should look beyond housing subsidies. The project should be used as an opportunity to break the dependency on public housing by creating jobs and programs that make more residents self-sufficient. Rather than merely disperse poverty, this effort should prepare hundreds of residents for home ownership, which would build financial security for themselves and repay the public as property taxpayers. Many other residents will need long-term rentals and assistance keeping their properties from replicating Central Park. We can abandon the practice of clumping the poor without abandoning the worthy mission public housing provides.

Tampa's housing authority cannot rely on federal money to serve the thousands waiting for homes, much less rebuild cinder-block relics like Central Park Village. The mayor should keep moving forward on creating a redevelopment plan for Central Park, and the county should help her seize the chance to revive this area's economy. The people who live here deserve better, the neighborhood has great potential and the entire community would benefit. We shouldn't be here in 2007 sizing up the obvious yet again.

[Last modified January 2, 2006, 02:30:25]