Past Forest View plans fail

When the city signed the 2019 zoning agreement, residents were given hope. The condition of the park had begun to slowly deteriorate since discussions of the park’s redevelopment began in 2016, and residents were eager for change.

City documents from 2019 outline the city’s plan, in agreement with the developer, Blackbird, to provide Forest View residents with affordable housing before any building permit would be issued for the land.

Salih told the DI the developer and the tenants had agreed to build housing for residents on the west end of the park that would become rent-to-own property over the course of 15 years and would maintain the same price as rent in the park, which she said was $310 at the time and increasing 3 percent per year.

The agreement suggested that the east end of the park would be developed into commercial spaces.

In March 2019, residents of the park went to the Iowa City City Council in support of the redevelopment plans.

Margarita Baltazar, president of the Forest View Tenants Association, told the council that after months of conversations and meetings with the developer, residents were happy that the land their homes occupied would be redeveloped.

“[Baltazar] does go to sleep and wonder what is going to happen to her home, how much time will she have here, will it fall down, what is she to do with her children?” the March 7, 2019 city council info packet reads. “Her child and the children of Forest View are the same children like any other place and they deserve a dignified home.”

The developer initially proposed moving the mobile home units to the west end of the park before settling on the rent-to-own proposal in newly-built housing that both parties were happy with.

“If this project would have happened, it [would] be amazing,” Salih said. “I think it was just too good to be true.”

But less than a year after the park’s zoning agreement was signed, COVID-19 emerged. It had a marked impact on residents, Salih said, with many of them losing out on income or losing their jobs.

Salih and statements from city staff recall that the impact of COVID-19 meant that Blackbird could not fund the project as they had planned.

Salih remembers one encounter between a representative from Blackbird and Forest View residents in early 2020 where the representative assured residents that they would be able to move into the proposed affordable housing on the west end of the park by spring 2021.

As summer 2020 rolled around, the condition of the homes in the park continued to slowly deteriorate as the pandemic affected the finances of many residents who were hesitant to keep up with needed repairs on their homes.

Salih said this was because the promised development was coming, and residents of the park, most of whom were part of low-income households, didn’t want to spend money to repair their homes when they figured they wouldn’t be living in them for much longer.

In August 2020, the Midwest was slammed by the derecho, and the residents of Forest View suffered greatly because of it, Salih said.

Volunteers came from the Iowa City community to fix residents’ roofs and provide patchwork repairs after the storm and into the winter months, including people from the local Habitat For Humanity. But nothing substantial was done in the end to fix residents’ homes.

Their homes weren’t the only thing in disrepair, either. Key utilities in the park were also suffering from the promise of new development.

“[For] I think six years, no one is keeping up with the sewer,” Salih said. “They’re not keeping up with the park at all. The streets are terrible, the sewer is terrible.”