At housing site: During a tour last week of an affordable housing unit site being completed after developers abandoned it two years ago, Lee County Commissioner Frank Mann, center, talks with Marcus Goodson, director of the Fort Myers Housing Authority, right, and the units' project manager. Photo by Mel Toadvine

An angry group of people – probably 70 to 75 individuals – jammed the meeting room of the Veterans Park Community Center and nearly took over the meeting, delaying the regular part of the meeting for an hour while LACPC President Edd Weiner banged his gavel several times to quiet the audience.

The people were upset that an “affordable housing complex” was being build in their neighborhood of Covington Meadows, a small development just off Beth Stacey Blvd. They even brought signs but were told to put them aside.

Marcus Goodson, who heads the Fort Myers Housing Authority, had been asked to attend the meeting by Weiner. Over and over again, he assured the crowd that the townhouses that the Authority purchased with federal stimulus money was being used to finish a handsome housing complex that will house 16 families on Beth Stacey Blvd., just on the edge of the Covington Meadows Neighborhood.

Goodson reminded the group that the housing that his group is completing has nothing to do with HUD housing and is not a HUD housing “low income” project. He said the small complex was for people making middle income to lower income and their rents would be based on a formula of their wages and how many children they have. Each unit houses three bedrooms and is two stories tall. He even brought an assistant who works in the Fort Myers Housing Authority and said she is very strict when she makes visits to units with lower rents. Many of those who would be qualified would be teachers, hospital workers and others who make a certain amount of wages but will pay smaller rent because they have children to support.

He said rents would average anywhere from around $420 to $850 a month.

Mann at site: Lee County Commissioner Frank Man, middle, tours the affordable housing units that are being completed at the edge of Covington Meadows, a small development off of Beth Stacey Blvd. At left is the project manager and at right, a woman from the nearby neighborhood who had a sign in her yard mistakingly calling it a HUD housing project, Fort Myers Housing Authority Director Marcus Goodson and at right Edd Weiner, chairman of the Lehigh Acres Community Planning Corp. (LACPC). Photo by Mel Toadvine

The group continued to scream out questions about “low housing” in their neighborhood and some claimed it would destroy their property values, many of which have dropped in value anyway because of the soured economy, and that the crime would increase and there would be drugs and other crimes committed in the complex in their neighborhood, bringing about a bad element of renters.

But Goodson repeated that none of that would be allowed and pointed to other “affordable housing complexes” in the county and said they are being kept up by renters.

“Not everyone can own a house. Many of you in this room rented before you bought your homes. These will be your neighbors and the rents will help them because of their financial circumstances,” he said.

Finally someone complained that there has been weeds and trash at the construction site and that it was all surrounded by an ugly black chain-linked fence and that unsightly vines were growing on trees. A large Dumpster has been sitting on the property for the past two years, ever since the developer abandoned the property and left it half built.

Lee County Commissioner Frank Mann, who represents all of Lehigh, asked Goodson if something could be done to clean up the exterior of the complex.

Removal of fence at new complex: Workers are shown tearing down a black chain-linked fence that surrounds a new affordable living complex being built on Beth Stacey Blvd. The Fort Myers Housing Authority said the grounds of the complex with 16 townhoues will be cleared by the end of this week, satisfying an angry group of neighbors who thought the complex was a HUD low housing project. Photo by Mel Toadvine

Goodson said if that would make people happy, and that he understood how they felt, work would begin the next day. Mann told the group that since he represented them as their commissioner, he would personally see to it that the site is cleaned up immediately as final work is being done on the interior.

The meeting was last Wednesday night and on Thursday morning, Mann met with Goodson and took a tour of the complex and stressed that the land be cleaned up. Off to the side, already workers were removing the ugly black chain-linked fence and when completed will begin building an attractive wall type fence. Goodson promised debris and the Dumpster would be removed by the end of this week.

Also on the tour was Edd Weiner and a woman from the development who said she was pleased. She has had a sign in her front yard for months blaming HUD for the “low income housing unit” to be completed in their neighborhood.

At the site, she said she had removed the sign and was talking to neighbors and explaining that it was not a HUD project for low income people, but rather, an affordable living complex, something quite different.

There were requests to add an entrance to the complex from Beth Stacy Blvd., and Mann said he would talk to DOT officials, but safety concerns and other matters had to be taken into consideration before they would cut across a median strip to open up another entrance. As it is now, those who will live in the attractive complex or townhouses, would enter it after turning into the development, a matter of several yards. There is a similar entrance across from the townhouses, but nobody has complained about that.

The meeting on Wednesday night was so loud that Weiner, the LACPC chairman, threatened to end the meeting. After that statement, the people continued to shout out questions for another 30 minutes.

At one point in the beginning, an elderly gentleman in the back of the crowd shouted loudly at Weiner: “Who are you anyway?”

Weiner explained that this was the Lehigh Acres Planning Corp. and he was the chairman and he was glad they came and he and others would work on their problems, but he had other items to discuss before the Veterans Park Center shuts down at 8:45 p.m. The meeting began at 6:30 p.m. It was one of the largest crowds ever to attend a LACPC meeting with the crowd spilling over into a smaller meeting room that had been opened by pushing dividers back to the walls.

Goodson said the units would be completed by the end of summer with residents probably moving in in August.

“They’ll be good neighbors,” he said.