Cutbacks in Chinatown Project Anger Community

Chinatown’s only condominium project intended for low- or moderate-income families has been scaled back more than 75%, leaving the local Chinese community angry and frustrated.

The drastic step reduced from 60 to 14 the number of condos available to those with limited means. It was taken by Community Redevelopment Agency commissioners because cost overruns and other problems connected with the construction of Angelina Terrace at 916 W. College St. had nearly killed the project.

The community is upset, said Susan Hum, chairwoman of the Chinatown Community Advisory Committee, because “Chinatown is made up mostly of renters, and one of our goals has always been to make home ownership available to as many as possible.”

$2 Million in Overruns

The project’s developer, Wilson Gee of Chinatown, incurred more than $2 million in cost overruns, according to city officials, and in addition construction workers were underpaid by $550,000 in violation of city agreements.

Low-income homeownership projects are uncommon, said John J. Tuite, administrator of the city Community Redevelopment Agency, which oversaw Angelina Terrace as part of its Chinatown Redevelopment Project, and constitute only one or two of the agency’s 60 to 70 housing developments each year.

“Angelina Terrace was a dream of ours, to have low-income residents have a small piece of the American pie,” Chi Mui, a Chinese-born engineer, told CRA board members at a meeting in Chinatown Wednesday night.

The commissioners voted to allow Gee to sell 46 of the 60 units at “market rate,” with no price ceiling, and to increase prices of the 14 low- or moderate-income condos from a previously agreed $120,000 to $140,000.

The board also voted to provide second mortgages of up to $35,000 for buyers of the restricted units. Income limits for these condos are $28,400 for a low-income family of four and $42,600 for a moderate income family of four. The CRA loans would not have to be repaid until the owner sold to another low- or moderate-income person or refinanced.

‘A Difficult Situation’

“It was a difficult situation,’ said Hum, whose committee advises CRA on community needs. “Either we’d lose it all or settle. We were between a rock and a hard place.”

Developer Gee, a 36-year-old Chinese-American born and raised in Chinatown, said he was also disappointed that the project, which he started five years ago hoping “to give something back to the community,” had turned into a financial nightmare.

He had trouble finding loans for the project, he said, and once construction began, he was plagued by delays due to problems such as soil contaminated with oil sludge, which had to be removed.