Common Council reaffirms commitment to housing crisis, public health, safety over winter break

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The Syracuse City Common Council held two meetings over winter break, reaffirming its commitment to addressing the city’s ongoing housing crisis and the health and safety of Syracuse residents.

Following the authorization of a grant of up to $50 million to revitalize the historic 15th Ward at its Dec. 4 meeting, the council’s major decisions from its Dec. 18 and Jan. 8 meetings aim to further address the housing crisis, as well as lead poisoning and gun violence in the city.

Housing crisis

Syracuse is growing in size and faces a housing crisis, said Councilman Patrick Hogan, who represents the city’s 2nd District. The council has continued its efforts to provide affordable housing to residents with two authorizations made in their Dec. 18 meeting.

The council authorized the establishment of a new local housing development corporation called the Syracuse Housing Trust Fund Corporation (HTFC). Part of HTFC’s mission is to leverage public, private and traditional lending capital to help construct and rehabilitate housing in the city, said Sarah Pallo, the public information officer of neighborhood and business development.

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“Right now, we have about six to seven thousand housing-vulnerable people in the city of Syracuse,” Hogan said. “We literally don’t have enough housing for everybody.”

Hogan said he expects Micron Technology’s new semiconductor facility, which will be built north of Syracuse in Clay, to bring even more people to the city. Micron’s site will create nearly 50,000 jobs, according to its website.

“We have a city that’s going to grow, and we’re in a housing crisis,” Hogan said.

Hogan said the council will need to develop “new vehicles” to build housing. He referred to their Oct. 2023 decision to revitalize an abandoned asylum into 500 units of affordable housing as an example of these new methods.

During the meeting, the council also authorized the sale of City Hall Commons to Hanover Real Estate Development. The development company will renovate the building into a “mixed-income, mixed-use” property that will include 39 residential apartments, according to the council’s Dec. 18 agenda.

Lead water pipes

During the council’s Dec. 18 meeting, the council applied for a $10 million grant from the New York State Department of Health and the Department of Water to replace residential lead water service pipes throughout the city with copper pipes.

Syracuse has over 14,000 residential lead water service pipes, Spectrum reported in July 2022.

“We try to apply for as many grants as possible … usually we end up getting something,” Hogan said.

In Syracuse, 11% of children have unsafe levels of lead in their bloodstream. Black children are affected at nearly twice the rate of white children, according to a 2023 study on lead poisoning in the city. Specifically, Black boys in the city of Syracuse have “the highest rates of lead poisoning in the nation,” according to Spectrum.

The council also applied for $2 million in federal grants to develop an inventory of lead water pipes as well as a “web-based portal” where city residents can look up where lead is present in pipes throughout the city.

Gun violence

The Common Council has begun to implement measures to reduce gun violence with funding from a $1.5 million grant previously awarded by the U.S. Department of Justice for violence prevention in October 2022.

On Dec. 18, the council entered into contracts with several local organizations, including the UnBEYlievable Enterprises Corporation, Syracuse Model Neighborhood Facility, Inc., OG’s Against Gun Violence and the Good Life Youth Foundation.

The organizations will hire a total of five part-time outreach workers and assist the city with “gun violence reduction outreach, mediation, and victim support services,” according to the council’s Dec. 18 agenda.

Other business:

Dec. 18 meeting

• The council applied for the following grants with the New York State Department of Transportation:
  • $1,737,500 to fund the creation of the Lemoyne Avenue Greenway. The greenway, running parallel to Wolf Street and Hiawatha Boulevard, would “support non-driver access to public transportation, enhance mobility” and offer a safer route to school for children in the area.
  • $4,930,000 to fund the Westside Trail Project, which aims to support ADA-compliant facilities for bicyclists and pedestrians at a “high-accident location” near the Public Service Leadership Academy at Fowler.
  • $5,000,000 to replace the Chafee Avenue Pedestrian Bridge over Onondaga Creek with a wider bridge to support pedestrian and bicycle travel.
  • $5,000,000 to fund the Inner Harbor Area Sidewalk Improvement Project, which will replace and construct new sidewalks along Van Rensselaer Street and West Kirkpatrick Street. The project is part of the city’s plans announced in December 2022 to revitalize the Inner Harbor area.
• The council entered into an agreement with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission grant program to use $37,500 to purchase and install carbon monoxide alarms in city households.

Jan. 8 meeting

• The council proposed to amend the city’s Tax and Assessment Act to establish a new procedure for the “seizure and sale of tax delinquent property to the Land Bank” per a May 2023 U.S. Supreme Court decision, which affirms that, after a property seizure, property owners must be reimbursed for surplus equity so they can pay tax debts.
• The council applied to The Recycling Partnership and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation Municipal Waste Reduction and Recycling grant to fund the purchase and distribution of 96-gallon recycling carts for Syracuse city residents.

CORRECTION: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated the mission of the Syracuse Housing Trust Fund Corporation and link to the website for Homes and Community Renewal’s Housing Trust Fund Corporation. There is currently no website for the Syracuse Housing Trust Fund Corporation. The Daily Orange regrets this error.