Print

Email story

Comment

Letter to the editor

Housing plan: boon or bane?

By SARAH MISHKIN
Published June 8, 2007

A push to build transitional housing in Sulphur Springs has sparked discussion about where the neighborhood is heading and how it can reclaim a measure of its past glory.

Sulphur Springs is still trying to overcome a decadeslong slump that left it with rundown properties and a transient population. In an attempt to stabilize the neighborhood, the city changed zoning laws in 1987 to encourage the construction of single-family homes.

So when Metropolitan Ministries announced it wanted to build 12 townhouses for families trying to stave off homelessness, activists got busy.

"We fought too hard to get our community livable, and we're going to keep it that way, " said Linda Hope, who grew up here and is a member of the Sulphur Springs Action League.

Still, some residents support the project. They say Metropolitan Ministries, which would manage the housing, is not the kind of absentee landlord that has long plagued Sulphur Springs, once a tourist hot spot.

"We were picturing the worst, and the people at Metropolitan Ministries seem really nice and really accountable, " said Tim Vadnais, a resident of 13 years.

- - -

Sulphur Springs still has its challenges, but some residents see brighter days ahead.

One resident of eight years, Lisa Morales, plans to move to Land O'Lakes by the end of the summer. "Too much drugs; it's not good for the kids, " she said.

But work by residents such as Hope and Vadnais has cleaned up much of the area. In 1987, they lobbied for a zoning change that prohibited multifamily housing and stopped the growth of duplexes.

"They gave us the single family zoning on the grounds that we were there and we were screaming, " Hope said.

People flocked to the tourist hot spot in the 1920s and '30s to soak in Sulphur Springs' waters. But by the 1980s, pollution had closed the now murky-brown springs, and the area filled with short-term renters. Muffler shops and second-hand furniture stores now line Nebraska Avenue, the area's main north-south artery.

"It's a very transitional neighborhood, " said Lennette Deal, pastor of the All Nations Outreach Center and House of Prayer. Deal said she regularly hears from residents who need assistance paying their utilities and rent.

But parts of the community are reclaiming some of their flapper-era spirit as the duplexes are phased out and the city chips in to revive the area's parks.

In 2000, the city built a popular pool at the foot of the springs, near an ornate gazebo and water tower that date from the tourist boom 80 years ago. Tampa's parks department plans to restore the cypress doors and ornate concrete that helped make the tower at N Florida Avenue into a local landmark.

- - -

The corners of the yellow "Condemned" sign are beginning to peel off the building that once housed Calvary United Methodist Church at 750 E Waters St., across from the Tampa Greyhound Track.

Metropolitan Ministries wants to tear down the structure and build the townhouses, said Cathy Stone, strategic planning officer for Metropolitan Ministries.

The families placed in the townhomes would have graduated from the ministry's life skills classes and would be required to meet with a case manager, she said. Alcohol and drugs would not be allowed on the premises.

Stone said Metropolitan Ministries wants to see the neighborhood succeed as much as anybody. It wants its clients living in a healthy, family-friendly environment. Stone said residents would violate their leases if they are not working or in school.

"If it came to a time when they didn't want to invest as much as was being invested in them, then we would ask them to make some other arrangements, " she said.

The Action League's Vadnais said Metropolitan met with their group and addressed many of its concerns, pledging to add a 24-hour on-site supervisor and more green space for children. Metropolitan Ministries operates transitional homes for five other families in Tampa.

A City Council public hearing is scheduled for Thursday to discuss the ministry's rezoning request.

Still, residents chafe over the number of halfway homes, group homes and transitional housing already in Sulphur Springs. The city does not keep an official tally, but residents and police officers point to at least five in the area, including one recently approved home for disabled children.

"It's a very, very worthy goal, " Hope said of the ministry's plans. "It's just right idea, wrong place, maybe."

Deb Boles, a patrol officer with the Tampa police, said the new housing could be positive, as long as the landlords enforce guidelines to prevent substance abuse and loitering. "Otherwise, you're going to take an economically and crime-stretched neighborhood and make it worse, " she said.

Larry Burnett, a homeowner across the street from the lot in question, was enthusiastic about the plan.

"I think it's great for the area, " Burnett said. "It's better than what's going on there now - nothing."

Sarah Mishkin can be reached at smishkin@sptimes.com or 225-3110.

[Last modified June 7, 2007, 07:29:03]