Affordable Housing – Miami-Dade County Infill Lots Program.
Our housing subsidiary, Collective Developers, LLC, continues to push forward against the innumerable obstacles of this program. The permitting difficulties are such that, added to the $205,000 Sales Price Cap, will result in fewer and fewer builders capable of continuing to build under this program’s requirements, to the detriment of our low- and moderate-income families.
Despite those difficulties, and the continuing expense of properly maintaining our vacant lots, we believe we are getting closer to pulling our first permits, either for single-family or duplex models.
The CEG’s eventual success is largely due to the support and collaboration of three different builder-developer partners, through which we are processing multiple building permit applications. They are: 1) our original building partner and earliest supporter, Architect, General Contractor, and Developer Armando Cazo, one of the most respected and experienced builders in this difficult niche; 2) the GC/Investor and Architect team of Juan Carlos Hernandez (JCH Investment) and Alfredo Julien (A.M.Julien Contracting), where we are applying for single-family and duplex models; 3) and our newest builder-developer partner, BSC Solutions Group, who will introduce their innovative, Near-Zero-Efficiency modular homes. Their highly qualified team: local investors Herman Dorset, II, and Evans Branch, and Gen. Contractor Les Allen, Jr.
We continue to solicit your prayers and support to push through the final phase that will lead to our breakthrough.
New Affordable Housing concepts by the CEG coming to Brownsville.
CEG continues its preliminary work of the development of multi-family housing units in Brownsville. We are well advanced in our pre-development phase which will result in a new for-sale product at very affordable levels: Fourplex units in a townhouse-type configuration, to be sold in fee-simple under the provisions of a Homeowners Association. We have preliminary commitments for financing from Florida Community Loan Fund, as primary construction lender, and the City National Bank Foundation who will provide a new type of component in the capital stack, “Basement Financing” (as opposed to conventional “Mezzanine Financing”) providing a sizeable contribution of front equity that will reduce the capital requirements from our to-be-selected co-developer.
Our collaboration with Enterprise Community Partners.
The Faith Based Development Initiative (FBDI) is well under-way here in South Florida. Thanks to our partners, Enterprise Community Partners and Citibank, the CEG is now ready to begin pre-development/technical phase of our FBDI. We expect that the first project developed in a CEG member-church site will be on the property of Bethel Apostolic Temple, under the spiritual leadership of Pastor Carol Nash-Lester. We engaged our strategic partner, SCM Consulting (Stephanie Williams-Baldwin and Jasmine Baldwin) to prepare a comprehensive Feasibility Study of the property. We have already reviewed their initial draft which suggests construction of around 70-130 residential units plus commercial spaces fronting on N.W. 119th Street, and the additional option of adaptive re-use of portions of their existing building. We have started to reach out privately to major developers well known to us, to explore development various options and concepts, soliciting initial expressions of interest in partnering with the Bethel/CEG team.
The CEG solicits faith leaders throughout South Florida that are interested in faith-based development of their existing/underutilized properties, to contact us on how we can assist them in their efforts. For more information, please contact Min. Bruno Phanord, at bphanord@cegsfl.org, or call (786) 352 – 7014.
Key Biscayne Foundation and The Children’s Trust.
With great thanks to our partners at The Children’s Trust, the CEG is now in collaboration with our new partners, the Key Biscayne Foundation, for the expansion of the Miami Youth (MyG) affiliate of the CEG. The CEG plans to develop a state-of-the-art Youth Leadership and Technology Learning Center in the heart of Liberty City. This center will provide a home for the MyG Seed to Harvest Curriculum, an on-site garden, as well other much needed programming and resources for the area, including after school activities and a 24-hour daycare facility. With this CEG/Key Biscayne Foundation joint-venture, we aim to bridge the cultural divide, fortify the sister city relationship, and create a lasting paradigm change in the ability for diverse cities to collaborate with one another.
Otrher new collaborations and joint ventures.
We are engaged in various conversations with different potential new partners. While most of that dialogue explores new affordable housing products and alternatives, and mixed-use developments, some include cutting edge new concepts. We encourage those willing to join our efforts to transform our community and provide the basic housing needs of so many who have been unfairly left behind, without access to fair opportunities.
The CEG’s “Prosperity-for-All” Platform.
We have recently created a six-point civic platform to be offered to our entire Miami community,
aiming to raise the moral and intellectual level of our public conversations, and offering radical new solutions to many of our most deeply-rooted social problems. We ask those interested in sparking such a community dialogue to reach out to us for a copy of this document.
For questions or for more information on any of the matters, please contact Bruno Phanord, Executive Vice President, at 786.352.7014, or via email him at bphanord@cegsfl.org.
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Come and work with us and help us build The Kingdom, under our “Big Mansion”