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I guess there won’t be a meeting of the minds on West Onondaga Street. The much-beloved housing organization, Habitat for Humanity (which two years ago honored Syracuse New Times publisher Bill Brod as Mr. Habitat), asked the city to allow them to combine a pair of parcels in the 1400 block so that they could build one of their classic, low-to-the ground ranch houses, like the dozen or so they have put up over the past few years.
Third District Common Councilor Bob Dougherty, who rides his bike to as many Common Council meetings as he can, often pedals past the block in question. He sees a neighborhood of two-story colonial style homes, and he doesn’t think a Habitat ranch would fit into the neighborhood. “I wanted to make my view known,” said the retired probation officer, speaking from his Valley home while his 3-year-old grandson waited impatiently in the driveway for Grandpa to play with him. “I didn’t know any other way to do it. I called {Second District Common Councilor} Pat Hogan, since it’s his district. I called Habitat.”
About the only thing that Dougherty and Habitat executive director Suzanne Williams agree on is that, when the two spoke, their conversation was not very productive. According to Williams, “{Dougherty} doesn’t want us to build there because it doesn’t fit in. It would fit in—like a crowning jewel. He says we should build a big old colonial—a barn. Who wants to live in a barn? That’s ridiculous! Who can afford to heat a barn? He needs to look at the people inside the house and not just the house.”
Folks who commented online about this story were even less kind toward Dougherty. Longtime Syracuse United Neighbors organizer Phil Prehn resorted to calling the councilor’s intervention a “dick-move” on Facebook. Dick-move was a new term for me, so I went to Wikipedia to look it up. My search produced this result: “The page “Dickmove” does not exist. You can ask for it to be created.”
I chose not to ask for it to be created. I hope no one ever does. Dougherty says he’d never heard of the term before either, but he got Prehn’s drift. “He’s basically saying that I’m a dick.”
Others called Dougherty, in essence, a carpetbagger, since he neither lives in nor represents the block in question (his district line ends one block away), and he was accused by anonymous posters of being allied with notorious slumlords.
“Come on,” says Dougherty. “You get in this and you expect some of this stuff to happen. What am I, the ruling class? I’ve worked in this city my whole life. My first job was as a housing specialist working with Peace, Inc., on Seymour Street, going back to the early 1970s.” He cited numerous cases of rental and owner-occupied houses that he has called to the city’s attention for code violations.
In the end, the Planning Commission granted Habitat’s request, but the charitable carpenters are not likely to put a house there. After all the fuss, Habitat is probably going to sell the lot, since it’s too steep for a driveway and the agency wants all of its homeowners to have off-street parking.
“We’re going to keep on doing what we’ve been doing for years: building affordable, energy-efficient, accessible housing for low-income people,” stresses Williams. “I’m not going to build a two-story colonial so that he can have a nice vision while he is riding his bicycle.”
Two ranch houses are in her sights: one in the spring in East Syracuse, which is designated for a veteran, and one on the 600 block of Gifford Street, to be constructed soon by the charity’s Women’s Build effort.
Williams adds that her agency, unlike other housing agencies in town, will not accept government funding, and must raise every dollar from voluntary contributions. She estimated the cost of a new Habitat home at $150,000. The homes are sold to screened owners who receive an interest-free mortgage and who put in hundreds of hours of their own labor to finish the houses.
And after all the fuss, would Dougherty step into the same hornet’s nest again? “Oh sure,” says the councilor. “I just wish there was a more diplomatic way to do it. I would like to think there could be some kind of compromise—maybe a design that costs more, but we could get Habitat some more donations. In Syracuse sometimes we say that anything is better than nothing, but it doesn’t have to be that way.”
As for Williams, she says that after she has received dozens of calls and emails in support of her position, “I haven’t given it any more thought.”
I do have one more thought. When people who have demonstrated over long decades of service that they love this city disagree passionately, can we do so without calling names, without questioning motives? Just asking.
Read Ed Griffin-Nolan's award-winning commentary weekly in the Syracuse New Times.
