HOUSING TOPS AGENDA FOR COUNCIL

For 52 years, Cape Girardeau has had a housing authority ordinance on the books, but no public housing.

If the city council wants to make public housing a reality, it should enact a new ordinance, the city staff suggests.

But the measure would basically be the same as the 1941 version, said Stephen Williams, the city's housing assistance coordinator. "It would just be updating the ordinance, enacting an ordinance saying the same thing," he said Thursday.

Williams said the public housing process is spelled out in state and federal laws. "You more or less have a pattern or footprint that you have to follow through the public housing process."

The whole process takes time. Williams said that even if everything proceeds smoothly, it will likely take a couple of years to secure funding, construct and open public housing units in the city.

A housing assistance task force has reported there is a need for public housing in Cape Girardeau and has recommended the city council pursue efforts to secure such federally funded housing.

The council is scheduled to discuss the public housing issue when it meets Monday.

By statute, in order to proceed with public housing, the council must receive a petition signed by at least 50 Cape Girardeau taxpayers asserting that there is a need for a housing authority and requesting the council declare there's such a need.

In a letter to the council, Williams and City Manager J. Ronald Fischer said: "If such a petition is filed, then the council, as stated in the statutes, shall determine that there is a need for a housing authority if it shall find that insanitary or unsafe inhabited dwelling accommodations exist or that there is a shortage of safe or sanitary dwelling accommodations available to persons of low income at rentals they can afford.

"It is the staff's opinion that the housing assistance task force has provided the council with the means to make this determination," they wrote in the council agenda letter released Thursday.

Williams said that under state law the housing authority would be directed by a five-member commission whose members would be appointed by the mayor. The five commissioners must be taxpayers who have resided in the city for at least five years.

Initially, three commissioners would be appointed to terms of one, two and three years, respectively. The other two would be appointed to serve four-year terms. Thereafter, all five commission seats would be for terms of four years.

The mayor would designate which commissioner would serve as the authority's first chairman. When that person's term ends, the authority itself will select the chairman from among its commissioners, Williams said.

As a municipal corporation, the housing authority would operate independently of city government, he explained.

The housing authority could hire an executive director and other staff it deems necessary and set the salaries for such positions, he said.

"The financial requirements and staff support for the authority, if appointed, will probably be minimal, at least initially," Williams and Fischer said in their letter to the council.

"The existing planning services staff may be able to provide initial administration support, but this will depend on the level of the authority's activities," they said.

A private consultant can draw up the housing authority's application for Housing and Urban Development funding at no cost, with the anticipation of employment if a project is funded.

The housing authority may also request front-end funding in the application of 1 percent of the cost of any proposed project, Williams and Fischer said. The authority can request federal funds for both construction and operation of housing units.

In other business Monday, the council will consider approving a grant agreement with the Missouri Department of Natural Resources. The grant would fund a study of the city's combined sewer overflows -- discharges from sewers that carry both sewage and stormwater.

The grant of nearly $17,000 a year for two years covers the cost of equipment, supplies and labor to collect data and prepare a report, city officials said. Under the plan, the city staff would perform much of the work itself.