COLUMBIA, Mo. - Twenty Jefferson City residents traveled to Columbia on Monday to tell the Missouri Housing Development Commission it should reject a funding application to help develop 50 apartments in the 700 block of East McCarty Street.
The developer didn't make a presentation.
The proposal was one of 21 discussed at Monday's Columbia public hearing.
"I don't really know what to expect, because we haven't been involved with this, before," businesswoman Donna Deetz said, after the nearly two-hour hearing on the 21 projects. "Knowing how many proposals are out there - (all but one) had strong support and some had fantastic support from their entire community.
"We were the only proposal that had negative opposition to it."
Maximillian Howell, a spokesman for the developer, did not return a request for a comment for this story.
Housing Development Commission spokesman Brian Vollenweider told the News Tribune all the information gathered at the public hearings "goes, as presented, to the commission at the next commission meeting - for all the developments, any comments that were made, or any letters that come in."
Kansas City-based MRE Capital has proposed the Jefferson City apartments complex.
At an Aug. 31 meeting Deetz arranged for area residents and business people, MRE Capital co-founder Dan Sailer told nearly three-dozen people they envision their project - a mix of one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments that would rent for around $600 a month, targeting working families earning around $24,000-$28,000 a year - as a catalyst for additional developments and additional economic interests.
They would finance the project mainly through about $8 million from the commission, which provides developers with federal grants requiring the developer to make at least a 15-year ownership commitment.
The commission's hearings are designed to get public reactions to the various proposals.
Deetz and others noted the other 20 projects discussed Monday had been assembled with community support and input - but the East McCarty apartments' developers didn't meet with community leaders until after beginning their plans.
Deetz said the proposal "could be a very viable development - but not the way it's been gone about."
The opponents said they're not against any development of the property,
Matt Holland of Holts Summit owns several East McCarty Street properties, and on Monday repeated a message he told the Jefferson City Council on Oct. 3: "With all the money that's been put in to creating that exit off the (U.S. 50/63 Expressway) onto Lafayette, it only makes sense to develop it commercially" instead of adding apartments.
He said the existing vacant lots on the northeast corner of East McCarty and Lafayette streets would allow "something of decent size while there's still plenty of room for all the little boutiques (that could go) in all the buildings around it, or little offices."
Cathy Bordner, a champion of East Side redevelopment who has done her own rehabilitation work, noted: "They're going to tear down seven buildings in order to accomplish (the new complex), and the Central East Side (Redevelopment) Plan focused on preserving buildings (and) matching the character of the neighborhood."
The developers have sought some information from Jefferson City government's planning officials - but Director Janice McMillan told the Oct. 3 City Council meeting her staff could not comment on the project yet because they've seen nothing to review.
Holland also is concerned that the lower-income residents the apartments are intended to serve will have trouble finding - or getting to - jobs that aren't close to the near-downtown neighborhood.
Among the opponents' other concerns is the impact on East School - and, to a lesser extent, on Immaculate Conception's grade school - that adding a number of young families could have.
Myrna Hoyle noted East "does not have the room or teachers for" that extra student load.
Previous coverage:
Neighbors question proposed McCarty Street apartments (Sept. 2, 2016)