Before a Single Hammer Swings
by Dan Sise, Director of Real Estate
Many of you only know the Habitat you see on Saturdays - the one that brings people together to pound nails and shovel dirt and paint walls, and in the process, to create new homes almost out of thin air. But what most of you don't see is the hard work that goes into each and every project months before a single shovel full of dirt gets moved or a single hammer ever swings.
After months of meetings and planning with various municipal officials, Habitat settles on a few select neighborhoods and city blocks here or there to be the locations of our upcoming build projects. At that point my work, and the work of so many others who help me, kicks into gear. I can address the countless regulatory, financial, property acquisition, environmental and legal issues only with the essential help of many Habitat partners who deserve our thanks.
I don't know how much you know about development in St. Louis, but I can tell you that the kind of work we do could not get done without the help of some people in government. I would like to take a moment to say thanks to some of those important municipal officials. No matter how you feel about the role of government in our lives, the following people have shown a true desire to improve their communities, and thus make Habitat's work possible over the next few years.
Charlie Dooley, Dorothy Moore, Kimberly McKinney, Lance Cage |
In Hillsdale, we owe thanks to Hillsdale Chairwoman Dorothy Moore, and former St. Louis County Councilman Charlie Dooley, who is now serving as our new County Executive. They had the vision and drive to make our Hillsdale work a reality. In St. Louis City, our upcoming projects are planned for the JeffVanderLou neighborhood in the City's 5th Ward. There, we need to extend thanks to Alderwoman April Ford for her dedication to our cause and to her community, and to the Executive Director of the Vashon/JeffVanderLou Initiative, Sal Martinez. Sal isn't actually a municipal official, but he has played a vital part in getting the neighborhood on board with our future projects.
After getting the go-ahead from the local chieftains, I then start to run around like a madman looking for some money to cover our project soft costs. Soft costs are all the costs associated with everything on the site beyond the work and materials that go directly into the houses. For these funds we turn to Phil Minden and the St. Louis County Office of Community Development or, in St. Louis City, to Kathy Feil Brown and the City's Community Development Administration. We also will benefit from the help of the City's Affordable Housing Commission and Affordable Housing Trust Fund in 2004 at least, and, hopefully, beyond.
Second to the municipal officials involved in any project, the individuals and organizations above are some of the most important people to have on board with any project, and we owe them our thanks for their support of Habitat over the years and in the future.
Once I've cleared up all those regulatory and financial issues, I need to start buying property. To aid me in that task, I turn to Kevin Twellman and Maggie Lykens at Land America Commonwealth Title, and Nat Walsh, Amy Rubin, and Anne Marie Moriarty at U.S. Title. Property acquisition involves a great deal of paperwork and attention to detail, and these folks make all of that much easier for me.
As soon as Habitat owns the property, or at least has that step in the works, we start focusing on site design and preparation issues. Our on-staff volunteer architect, Art Stauder, is critical to this work. Art's experience and insights are more valuable than I can say, and I rely on him heavily. Art also helps me coordinate work with Roy Leimberg and Pitzman's Co. Surveyors and Engineers. Roy and his company perform the important work that helps us to divide or combine properties and to know exactly where our houses need to go.
Sometimes we also have to investigate environmental issues and problems. These sometimes concern the land we want to use. On the other hand, in the case of rehab projects, we have to worry about lead paint and asbestos in the houses we want to fix. Murray Meierhoff and his people at Shannon & Wilson provide us with the resources to address these potential problems.
And when Art Stauder isn't drawing up the building plans for our homes, we turn to Dave Mastin and San San Smith at St. Louis Design Alliance for their help in putting together all the construction drawings and blueprints we need to get municipal approval and building permits for our homes. Their aid in producing signed and sealed construction documents is a great benefit to us. It's at this point that I get the necessary building permits for our homes, and I then turn things over to our construction manager, Kyle Hunsberger.
I'm not quite done leaning on others for help yet. John Ammann and his students at the St. Louis University Law School Legal Clinic are responsible for all the hard work that goes into putting together the documents, records and closing materials we need in order to sell our homes to our homeowners. Habitat also relies heavily on John for help with countless other legal issues that come up in the day-to-day operations of Habitat. He and his students and the resources available through the Legal Clinic are a vital part of the machinery that keeps Habitat moving.
And what do all these people get for helping Habitat? Well, guys like Art Stauder and John Ammann get paid at the exorbitant rate of $0.00 per hour. And all the other groups that help us provide their much-needed expertise and services either for free or at significantly reduced rates. If we were paying full price for all of these services, our operation would be much more expensive, and we would be building fewer homes as a result. That's how much these people mean to us and to the individual lives and communities we change every year.
So the next time you run across one of the many partners we are lucky enough to have helping us, give them a well-deserved thank you, and know that they may not be shoveling dirt or swinging hammers, but they are helping to build homes- and a better tomorrow-just the same.
|
