Wayne Rosen wants the city of Homestead, Fla. to approve a $3.5 million loan of federal funds earmarked for alleviating blight, which he would use to rebuild Keys Gate Golf and Country Club. Rosen bought and shut down the club last year, but now wants to revive it while also building 1,000 homes around the golf course. The project meets the criteria for the loan as a “job-creation initiative,” Rosen said.
Developer Wayne Rosen is asking the city of Homestead, Fla. to approve a loan of $3.5 million in federal money meant for alleviating blight and creating jobs, so he can rebuild Keys Gate Golf and Country Club, which he bought and shut down last year, the Miami Herald reported.
Rosen’s revival plan for Keys Gate, to be considered by the Homestead City Council on December 8th, includes a luxury recreational complex, a gym, a pool, a remodeled clubhouse and a wedding venue, the Herald reported, all as part of a bigger vision that would see more than 1,000 homes built around the golf course’s fairways, as well as a 400-unit hotel.
The funds, the Herald reported, would come in the form of a federally guaranteed loan backed by the city’s future Community Development Block Grants—money allotted to benefit low-income communities or to eliminate slums or blight.
In the past, the Herald reported, such funds have gone to organizations like the Red Cross, the Homestead soup kitchen and the YMCA, as well as housing rehabilitation programs, community centers, parks and infrastructure projects.
While the average household income of a golfer is still $95,000, according to the National Golf Foundation, Rosen says his project meets the criteria required for the loan, the Herald reported, because the renovation of Keys Gate would serve as a “job-creation initiative.”
Homestead does have a need for jobs, the Herald noted, with an average household income of $40,523 and nearly 30 percent of the city’s 64,000 residents living below the poverty line. Further, nearly one in four houses in Homestead is underwater—with the owner owing more in loans than the property is worth—according to a spokeswoman at Zillow, the home-value tracking company.
“We’re going to work hard to help train employees and will be advertising in the Homestead area,” Rosen said. “Locals will be targeted for employment.”
He added that the project “will not only bring property values up in Keys Gate, but all throughout Homestead. We plan to bring a world-class golf course.”
If Homestead City Council members support Rosen’s request at its December 8 meeting, the application will be sent to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) for review, the Herald noted.
The golf course money would come from HUD’s Section 108 program available to the city through the block-grant program, the Herald reported. The program allows a city to convert part of its allocation into “federally guaranteed loans large enough to pursue physical and economic revitalization projects capable of renewing entire neighborhoods,” according to the HUD website. The interest rates are generally below-market.
“Such public investment is often needed to inspire private economic activity, providing the initial resources or simply the confidence that private firms and individuals may need to invest in distressed areas,” the HUD website says, according to the Herald’s report. Further, local governments “must pledge their current and future CDBG allocations as security for the loan. ”
HUD spokesman Brian Sullivan told the Herald that all applications “would have to benefit low- to moderate-income residents, eliminate slum or blight, or respond to some type of urgent need, such as a hurricane.”
The application would have “to articulate which three of these standards this golf course is going to meet,” Sullivan added.
The proposal has stirred little controversy in Homestead, a city where Rosen enjoys unparalleled influence, the Herald reported, not only as one of the main developers of the Keys Gate community but also as a heavy contributor to some of the city’s elected officials. Rosen made a six-figure loan to one councilman and sold his Mercedes to the then-mayor’s wife at a price that spurred an investigation by the Miami-Dade Commission on Ethics and Public Trust, the Herald reported. The commission said the sale was not a violation.
In the November election, Rosen and Rosen-affiliated companies and individuals gave more than $45,000 to four winning Council candidates, the Herald noted.
Council members interviewed by the Herald said they were generally in favor of fulfilling Rosen’s request, although some said they wanted to hear more about the proposal at the December 8.
Councilwoman Patricia Fairclough expressed approval for how the project could boost property values and bring the community’s golf course back to life.
“I think it’s not only a win-win for Keys Gate, but for the entire Homestead community,” she told the Herald. “I view it as something that’s great that will spur economic development in the community.”
After Rosen bought Keys Gate in late 2014, he abruptly shut it down, the Herald reported. “It had not been maintained for many years; it was in horrible conditions with very few players,” Rosen said in explaining the move.
He then floated the idea of assessing property owners in the development to pay for maintenance and remodeling, but that met resistance, the Herald reported.
Keys Gate is a gated community made up of 14 neighborhoods and more than 3,000 homes that includes some of the highest property values in Homestead, ranging anywhere between $250,000 and $500,000, the Herald reported.
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