Neighborhood Planning Council 2 - North Central

Monday, the 13th of January, 2025 Meeting Minutes NORTHCENTRAL NEIGHBORHOOD PLANNING COUNCIL #2 Washington Heights – Hub of Hope, 153 N. Wood St. 1. Call to Order & Welcome: 6:03 pm Pastor French calls to order. Welcomes. Introductions. What everyone is looking forward to. 2. Attendance: NPC 2 Members (E = Excused - notified an officer/member, X = Present, O = Absent): X Mary Bourgeois X Church of Scientology (Jeff Breedlove – Secretary) O Frank Drury X Faith Temple COGIC (Joe Hooper) X Dr. Monique French - Chair O Grace Health (Eric Gestring ) O Samuel Gray X Larz Martin-Bey - Vice Chair O Neighborhoods Inc. of Battle Creek/NIBC (Whitney Wardell) O Bettie Robertson O Gary McKinley X Ron Sweet O Prentice Thompson O Karen Todd X Cynthia Wyatt O Andre Robinson O Debra Evans O Shanay Settles X Springview Tower (Kimberly McFate) X Rodney Beckham Guests: X John Kenefick City Representation: X Cpl. O’Bryant X Helen Guzzo X Darcy Schmitt – planning X Mariah Bell. BC public Schools 3. Adoption of the Agenda: Breedlove motion to approve. Cynthia second. Voted unanimously. 8 for 0 against. 4. Approval / Amendment of Minutes: Summary of Minutes. Will table approval for next meeting. Minutes were not distributed. 5. Correspondence (sent/received) & Announcements: Saturday MLK prayer breakfast at First Presbyterian. Monday is the Dreamers Ball. On the 20th. At Kellogg Arena. $5 entry. Good opportunity to network and bring BIPOC community together. (Please submit all correspondence/announcements in writing whenever possible) 6. Presentation: Helen Guzzo. Community Development Survey that talks about housing needs. Community wide planning process. Broad survey. Consolidated plan for 2025-2029. Public hearings about needs. Public notice. Darcy Schmitt: Master plan reviewed every five year. Housing was never in the plan. Required component now. Build off other entities work. City of BC and Kellogg. BC unlimited. Link on website. Where stand with housing needs. Mailing Address: City Hall, 10 N. Division St., Room 104, Battle Creek, MI 49014 Phone: (269) 966-3315 Fax: (269) 441-0380 Web: www.battlecreekmi.gov  Monday, the 13th of January, 2025 Meeting Minutes NORTHCENTRAL NEIGHBORHOOD PLANNING COUNCIL #2 Washington Heights – Hub of Hope, 153 N. Wood St. Helen: Consolidated plan broad goals. Homelessness and housing. Code compliance. Meeting with each council. Gather up information for priority goals. Darcy: BC has major challenges. Housing is aging. More cost in maintaining. Roofs, water heaters. Quality is insufficient. Lack a lot housing for current population. City has 66% of housing is detached. 11% large community apartment. 7% are 50 units or more. Study found 470 houses hold for sale. Deficit of 1400 units of rental housing. Discussion on how to get new housing. Cost of development and amount of money family can get financed. Such a gap. Other priorities. Working on land use and regulatory rules. Working with people to re-zone that makes sense. With partners looking at feasibility to fill financing. Helen: Goes over report. Survey. Paper form. QR code on 3rd page. Planning and zoning. Community Development is under Community Services. Can provide paper copies. Next page is staff. 7 people. Minor home repair program. Goes over resources reports. Last year spent 1.5 million on minor home repair program. $300k tenant base rental assistant. Goes over cost of development and economics. Also have lead abatement program. HUD lead control. Explains. Also BC housing assistance. Goes over priorities in the plan for next 5 years. Report shows how spent dollars. 22% of code compliance gets paid for community block grant dollars. Discussion on the water in the city. French: everyone just received letters in Washington Heights that there is lead in the water. Discussion. Suggest to invite water department for next meeting. French: Voces housing referral? How was that determined to assist? Helen: It was during the pandemic. Funded through this June. 614 NE Capital. Will renovate that housing. Will do a public 15% block grant will go into community. Discussion regarding housing. Will get 3 houses, if lucky. Discussion of rental assistance. Home investment partnership program. Discussion about funding in the city. Where the dollars go. Share center bought van, washing machines, showers. Showes map. Where money was spent. 85 projects. Next page are code compliance. 7000 plus enforcements. By NPC. Next page talks about income limits. Median household 3.25 income $49,684. Below HUD. Most people qualify for minor home repair. United Way study ALICE. 52% households are in that population. Household earning less. BC home ownership 53% own their own homes. 7-12% vacant. Cost burden has gone down on home owners. Renter occupied have more cost burden. Talks about labor force. 61% adults labor force participation. Lower. More seniors retiring. Larger number because of VA. Lots move here. Larger percentage come for treatment. Out of town and other states. Haven provides bus fees to take people home. So many homeless by choice. O’Bryant: BC gets a lot because of all the homeless resources. They come here. French. Was 64% white and 17% for black. Has that changed? Darcy will look that up. Helen: looks at total residential properties, demolition and sales. 60 households lost homes to tax foreclosure. No program for tax assistance. O’Bryant: discussion about using dollars. Rodney: Opioid dollars? Who has say in who that was spent. Go on the Calhoun County webpage and shows. Family of victims? French: families of victims was not part of lawsuit. Helen: Discussion. 614 NE Capital recovery housing. Goes next page. Number of demolitions last 10 years, new builds. Goes over stats. Property sales. Housing are valued less in NPC 2. Discussion of SEV. Result of redlining in area. Looking at how to change that. O’Bryant: NPC 1 walked the whole NPC 1, city told them didn’t qualify. Mailing Address: City Hall, 10 N. Division St., Room 104, Battle Creek, MI 49014 Phone: (269) 966-3315 Fax: (269) 441-0380 Web: www.battlecreekmi.gov  Monday, the 13th of January, 2025 Meeting Minutes NORTHCENTRAL NEIGHBORHOOD PLANNING COUNCIL #2 Washington Heights – Hub of Hope, 153 N. Wood St. Helen: Need to own home, no back taxes longer than a year and have insurance. Changed law on property taxes. Dec 10th meeting, scheduling public meetings before commission. NPC will get schedule of when those are. O’Bryant. Tiny homes? Darcy: next step is what is the building codes regarding tiny homes. O’Bryant: They are wonderful in Kzoo. Darcy: Meeting with a manufacturer on what they can do and meet the codes. How can we reduce the cost of building. How can create incentive to lower costs. Dicussion on tiny homes. Who should developer reach out to? Darcy can lead to right people. 7. Committee & City Staff Reports: a. Police Department/Fire Department: Cpl O’Bryant:  police report. Goes over report. Compares to previous years. Stats going down. Only 2 felony arrests.  Howland house. These people who moved next door. Having parties. In process of writing complaint to city attorney as disorderly house.  Homeless encampment Roosevelt, Redner, sometimes people stay under linear path under Jackson. Burnham, by 66 huge encampment. Officer in process of breaking it up. If you see a homeless encampment give us a call.  Code compliance will board up house and charge owner. 450 E Michigan. Homeless go in there a lot. It’s unsafe. b. Elected Officials: c. Neighborhood Services: Nothing to report d. Beautiful battle creek awards. Larz would like to present Beautiful Battle Creek award to Pastor French. No nominations e. Membership: Names to nominate: f. Committees: none. g. Battle Creek Public Schools Bell: excited to learn things and share with families. Have students that come that want information. Being a part of NPC, all the information is helpful to give to families. Collaboration with French. Grants with Michigan Mailing Address: City Hall, 10 N. Division St., Room 104, Battle Creek, MI 49014 Phone: (269) 966-3315 Fax: (269) 441-0380 Web: www.battlecreekmi.gov  Monday, the 13th of January, 2025 Meeting Minutes NORTHCENTRAL NEIGHBORHOOD PLANNING COUNCIL #2 Washington Heights – Hub of Hope, 153 N. Wood St. out of school time. Includes 2 schools is NPC 2. Big schools that would have lost funding. Partnering with Washington heights and keep those programs. Do more for students and families. h. Landbank. None i. Grace Health none 8. Presentation: See above. 9. Old Business: Community development block grant dollars. When they put that RFP out we can try to access funds. 10. New Business. 11. Public Comments/Member Comments: McFate Springview. Has some vacancies. We are filling up. O’Bryant: Kimberly is great working with police department to get homeless off street. Talks of how she helped.7 of 9 move ins were homeless. If your income is less than 60% of rent you qualify. John Kenefick: House keeping issues. Brought documents here last time was here. Talks of what happened last time. Discussion. Talks of vacant home. Debt ceiling. National debt. Article in 1976. Cynthia, about SS. Discussion. 12. Next Meeting: Monday, Feb 10th. 6 PM @ Washington Heights UMC. 13. Adjournment: Moved to adjourn Breedlove. Second by Sweet.. Motion Carried Unanimously. 8 votes for. Meeting adjourned at approximately 7:30pm PM Minutes recorded and submitted by: Jeff Breedlove NPC2 Secretary NPC 2 Mission: To improve the quality of life by listening and engaging residents. NPC 2 Vision: A safe, friendly, family-driven neighborhood where everyone wants to live. Mailing Address: City Hall, 10 N. Division St., Room 104, Battle Creek, MI 49014 Phone: (269) 966-3315 Fax: (269) 441-0380 Web: www.battlecreekmi.gov  Monday, the 13th of January, 2025 Meeting Minutes NORTHCENTRAL NEIGHBORHOOD PLANNING COUNCIL #2 Washington Heights – Hub of Hope, 153 N. Wood St. The City of Battle Creek will provide necessary reasonable auxiliary aids and services, such as signers for the hearing impaired and audiotapes of printed materials being considered in the meeting upon reasonable notice to the City of Battle Creek. Individuals with disabilities requiring auxiliary aids or services should contact the City of Battle Creek by writing or calling the following: City Clerk Office (269) 966-3348/TDD Mailing Address: City Hall, 10 N. Division St., Room 104, Battle Creek, MI 49014 Phone: (269) 966-3315 Fax: (269) 441-0380 Web: www.battlecreekmi.gov  Monday, the 13th of January, 2025 Meeting Minutes NORTHCENTRAL NEIGHBORHOOD PLANNING COUNCIL #2 Washington Heights – Hub of Hope, 153 N. Wood St. Mailing Address: City Hall, 10 N. Division St., Room 104, Battle Creek, MI 49014 Phone: (269) 966-3315 Fax: (269) 441-0380 Web: www.battlecreekmi.gov