City Living Tour, Renaissance Pointe Style

This weekend and next weekend, Oct 27-28, the City of Fort Wayne is presenting a City Living Tour featuring Renaissance Pointe. This showcases John Street and the great models built there by Delagrange, Lancia, and Ideal Builders. On Friday evening, an event was held for local real estate agents to give them a heads up on what is going on down there. From what PJ reported, most comments (he only heard one negative) were super positive. And people were excited. Which is what we want. We want some contracts people!!!
The really cool thing I think for PJ at this job, is that unlike planning, he gets to see the results much sooner. For instance, in his past planning employment, there were projects that were so far down the pike that it might be several years before he would see one to fruition, much less feel like he was a part of it. With this project, he not only has been a part of it, but there are tangible results a year later! He said he feels really good to have gotten to this point; to the part where the builders can actually sell the homes. I do think he hopes (I totally do) that lots of people take their interest in the neighborhood and put pen to paper and build themselves a home. There are several incentives (including good down payment money and below market interest rates) to do so, and I think they have tried to make it available to people of several different income levels.
Which brings me to my next point. On one of the local blogs I read a statement about a person at the tour being upset about displacement. This let to the blogger researching more about displacement and gentrification. This is my personal opinion; I hope there is little to no displacement. I hope the families that live there will experience a better quality of life from having new homes and new neighbors. I hope that crime goes down . I hope that people rather than being afraid of the new development come out and meet the people that hope to be their neighbors. And I hope that people who do not want this new development are able to find a way to live with it. People in the past have been able to purchase homes in this neighborhood for an extremely small amount of money. But this amount may not have been small to them. Some of these people have homes that may have been in their family for years. It would stand to reason that as the new houses go up and the market finds more people to buy them (even us? more on that later...) the existing neighbors will have increased value of their homes. The only negative I can see on that is that their assessed tax value will increase, and therefore their property taxes will increase. (Hello, but our assessed value went up 27k from when we purchased??!!) But it is up to the council to take these issues to task and hopefully there will be a way for everyone to live together should they want to. It is also my hope that the development will create a need for more retail down there. I was saying to PJ as we discussed the possibility of building down there, that in our current neighborhood (Lakeside) we can walk to: the post office, the grocery store, the library, the coffee shop, several restaurants, 2 meat markets, a bakery, dentists, and a few liquor shops. At RP, there may be several restaurants and definitely the library, and a new Y in the works, but there is no close grocery or coffee shop. I hope that more retail and commercial comes down there and if it does I hope that is a benefit that current homeowners will enjoy as a result of the new development.
Okay it is apparent that I don't really know a lot about the facts, just stating my opinion. It was questioned by someone at the tour yesterday about the city's involvement. I overheard a gentleman state that the city wasn't really involved and I opened my big mouth and said it was. Really, other than PJ's involvement I don't know to what extent the city of Fort Wayne is involved with the project. However, I do know that they get federal entitlement funds and it is the city's discretion to decide what to do with them. One of these things is Renaissance Pointe. And PJ is working on the project along with others at the city, to improve this neighborhood and show people that a new home doesn't have to exist in the county. That sprawl is not the answer! And I say good for them.
And lastly I have to say again how proud I am of PJ. He has worked so hard (seemingly doubly so getting ready for the City Living Tour) and has worked with several people to get things done. And he came home Friday with a list of people to call and thank for making things happen. And that is one of the reasons I love him so.