Aurora mayor: Examine affordable housing citywide

Mayor Tom Weisner is urging the Aurora Housing Authority to pull in the reins on plans to redevelop the troubled Jericho Circle housing complex on the city’s west side.

Weisner said Tuesday he wants to begin a broader discussion about affordable housing solutions for the entire city before focusing on any single development.

A few aldermen and housing authority board members asked for increased communication between the two groups and a deliberate slowdown in the process of possibly rebuilding public housing at Jericho Circle.

“The way that we’ve been proceeding in these last few months seems like its going entirely too fast,” Alderman-at-Large Richard Irvin said. “Putting (redevelopment) off another year is not going to kill anybody. It’ll open up lines of communication and make it so we all know what needs to be done.”

But a slowdown may not come. The housing authority’s chairman, Al Schuler, said the authority is facing a late September or early October deadline to apply for low-income housing tax certificates. In order to apply, the authority needs to know whether it will redevelop Jericho Circle or find another way to provide more housing units, he said.

Reading from a resolution, Schuler said the authority “would consider alternatives to its existing redevelopment plans, but if no viable alternatives were arrived at in a timely fashion, the AHA would proceed in its application concerning its existing chosen site.”

The housing authority wants to tear down 145 housing units at Jericho Circle and replace them with units for people with different incomes. Redeveloping the site will help the authority fulfill its obligation of providing housing assistance for Aurora residents, including 1,086 on a waiting list, Schuler said.

The site, however, is not ideal for a public housing development, Weisner and others say. It lacks public transportation, nearby jobs, grocery stores and other amenities, opponents say.

“Not only does the Jericho site fail to meet these conditions, it is the antithesis of the optimal site,” Weisner wrote in an Aug. 10 letter to Schuler.

Regardless of what the housing authority does with Jericho Circle, Weisner said he intends to start a careful examination of fair and affordable housing citywide.

“We’re going to lead a process that looks at the whole community, looks at the future of the community, looks at affordable housing, engages all the stakeholders from the get go,” Weisner said. “Hopefully the AHA will be a part of that stakeholder group.”

The discussion of Jericho Circle’s future took place at a meeting of the city council’s committee of the whole after Weisner, Alderman Rick Lawrence and Schuler spent about three weeks exchanging lengthy letters on the topic.

At least one housing authority board member said she agrees the city and the housing authority need to work together on providing shelter. Others indicated they’re open to slowing down the housing development process to examine options other than Jericho Circle.

“The reality is we need the city in order to further what we want to do, in order to further housing in Aurora. So we can’t be enemies,” housing authority board member Myrna Molina said. “We need to sit at the table. We need to figure out how we’re going to work together.”