#Corin Belmonte

[jinks050]

Been needing to post this for my friend, @amityparkhalfa and his oc, Corin Belmonte, who we been rping with for many years. We kind of made too many aus with our ocs that it be hard to pinpoint it in just Danny Phantom stuff so I’m just posting all of it here. Hope you don’t mind it, T.

[surveillance-0011]

The Basement Plays Smash Bros

Isaac: He’s like 5 so he’s not too good but the others usually go easy on him. Probably plays as Pikachu or Pokemon Trainer, maybe Ness. Plays for fun and w/ items on.

Magdalene: Plays as one of the princesses or one of the cute characters like Jigglypuff. Just here to have a good time. Decent but Smash would never be her first choice of games to play. She also keeps the peace when things get heated.

Eve: Plays to not hurt Isaac’s feelings by refusing. Intentionally loses or fucks around except for one time Azazel was like “I bet you’d suck even if you tried” and she beat him like 3 times in a row. Idk who’d she choose... Maybe Meta Knight or the blue or black Kirby skin?? Samus?? Bayonetta??

Cain: Chooses the “cool” characters a lot. Maybe Cloud? But also would play as Mario and Greninja. Maybe Hero. Spams attacks at first but eventually kind of gets good. He and Isaac usually fight on the same team. Will pick up any item.

Samson: Chooses either one of the Belmonts or Street Fighter characters, maybe Bowser or Ganondorf. Or Terry?? Maybe Lucario. Probably the best at the game, out of the kids at least. Isaac and Cain ask him for help with story mode. Doesn’t like playing with items on. Lowkey has a hard time remembering which Smash ball is the real one.

Eden: Tries out every character. They like Corin, Mewtwo and Pit a lot. Sometimes they’ll just choose random for shits and giggles.

Judas: Not really into it and at first his reaction is like “ugh why are you BABIES playing a BABY GAME it’s like some brutish fighting game but with a bunch of KIDDY characters. Waste of time” but Samson is like “man stfu how about you play around and see for yourself”. He doesn’t admit it but he finds it,,, kinda fun. Plays as Robin.

Lazarus: It’s not his cup of tea and he’s kinda bad but he can have a good time w/ it. It’s not about winning it’s just good to do something with the other kids that’s NOT gonna get them all killed. Plays as Pit or Yoshi, maybe Dr. Mario.

Azazel: Annoying little shit. Like he’s a decent player but his attitude is just... ugh. Salt for days, unironically tells you to get good, spammy and edgeguardy. Plays as Joker or Ridley or both. He does like Dark Pit too tho. Has probably given Isaac a controller that was unplugged/uncharged/off/set as a cpu at least once.

Lilith: Has only played once or twice. Plays as Rosalina or Olimar. Kind of bad at it but she has a good time.

Bethany: Plays as Zelda, maybe Min Min. Skilled at the game, wins a lot. Turns off most items except for the pokeballs and assist trophies, as well as the Smash ball.

Keeper: Plays as Wario, kind of holding out for Waluigi. Not the best at the game. Pretty chill.

Wrath: Melee fanboy, probably. Rage quits if he loses too much in a row. Mains a “high tier” character (bold of you to assume I know who is high tier). Thinks that “It’s just a game” is a weak mindset.

Greed: Plays as King K. Rool, initially for the jokes but it is not a joke anymore.

Siren: Purple inkling or Bayonetta. Decent at the game and v chill. 

Min Min: Plays as Min Min. 

Hornfel: Plays as Fox or Joker half the time. The other time he uses a Sans or Shaggy mii. He’s alright.

Loki: Casual gamer but pretty good at competitive play. Plays as Banjo, maybe?  Or Mario.

Dark One: He’s amazing. Or, at least, amazing at being annoying. His playstyle is the way it is solely so he can Ruin Your Day In Particular. Probably has an Expensive Gamer Setup. Tells you to get good. Plays as Pichu and Pikachu.

Adversary: Video games aren’t usually his thing but Smash is one of those things that’s just fun even if you aren’t super into that stuff. He’s pretty good at it, having learned a lot from observing. He plays as Wolf.

Mom: Probably thinks Smash is the spawn of the devil.

Pestilence: Isn’t too interested in playing and even if he was the controller he uses would have to be sanitized like a million times afterwards. Instead opts to watch like half of it and comment needlessly. “War, you should probably use one of your smash attacks.” “THAT’S WHAT I’VE BEEN DOING DIPSHIT” “No, I mean the one with the ball” “FOR THE LAST FUCKING TIME THERE’S NO SMASH BALL WE PLAY WITHOUT IT”

War: It’s a good thing that he’s not super into video games bc if he was he’d be even worse to deal with. Like Wrath he can get pretty pissy and he gets VERY heated but he doesn’t really throw tantrums over it like Wrath does. Also he’s aware that he’s not super good at the game. His play style is pretty annoying and kinda spammy (whether he does it on purpose or not is debatable, but he probably is). Dislikes playing with items on. Mains one of the sword characters (probably one of the Links).

Death: He’s not really into video games but he catches on to how things work quick and gets pretty good for a casual player. Mains Donkey Kong, for whatever reason. You’d think he’d choose a more “serious” character but nope. The Monkey is his character of choice.

[amityparkhalfa]

Second OC-Corin

Corin Weylin Belmonte was the second son of three children to a rich family. He grew up in the shadow of his older brother, who was four years older than him and seemed to be perfect in every way. His parents clearly favored his brother over him, and when he was five, his mother had his sister, who was loved for being the only girl and baby of the family. 

Corin did everything he could to earn his parents affection, in particular his father’s. He mastered numerous skills and pushed himself in his academics, but none of it worked. When he was a teenager, months away from being fifteen, his father told him that there was one way to win his affection and become the real hero in the family; to surpass his brother by becoming something he couldn’t. His father offered him a way. Foolish, young, easily manipulated, and eager to finally feel wanted, he agreed and was swiftly taken by the GIW.

They held him in a underground secret base for roughly a year, experimenting on his body, taking him apart and putting him back together, altering his genetic makeup. They exposed him to ghost DNA and energy, altering and experimenting on him until he showed the results they were after; he became a halfa. 

Part of their experiments were to make their halfa superior to Danny Phantom in every way. Corin has a fast healing factor, and a body that’s harder to damage. He was truly the perfect weapon for the the GIW, except there was one major problem; he had a core power they’d never experienced. 

Corin is gifted with powers of gravity manipulation. He is able to create ‘gravity spheres’, purple orbs the size of baseballs and toss or attach them to things. Simply touching an object works too. The larger the object, the longer it takes to get a field around it, and the more energy it takes to hold it. Once a field is around an object, he can freely manipulate its gravity, increasing it, decreasing it, or changing where it’s gravitational focus is. He can make objects no longer be attached to the Earth’s gravitational pull, but instead feel the same pull to something else. 

Corin used this powers to escape, and has been on the run. Moving town to town, and occasionally going into the ghost zone, he knows he can’t rest until the GIW have been destroyed. 

Corin is tortured in every definition of the word. His body is scarred from the surgeries and tortures he underwent in the care of the GIW. His emotional state is ruined, he views himself as unwanted, and a monster. Not worthy of love or care. His mental state is unstable. He’s quick to upset, and he routinely suffers from horrible nightmares, mood swings, and displays most signs of clinical depression. 

As for physical stats, Corin is around 16, with short black hair and brown eyes. He is normally seen in a black hoodie, black jeans, and white shirt. When he shifts to ghost form (which he’s usually in 80 percent of the time,) the colors of his clothes invert, his hair turns white, and his eyes turn purple. 

[herfleur]

@taiuncensored’s playlist 1. Insane - flume ft. Moon Holiday 2. Fleur Blanche - Orsten 3. wild is the wind - esperanza spalding 4. Cocktail - corine 5. we begin - tricky/ francesca belmonte

[kismetpetresort]

‘We missed a major opportunity.’ Affordable housing lags near new Charlotte light rail | Island Packet

Long before the mid-March grand opening of Charlotte’s light-rail extension, city leaders vowed to help build affordable housing along the Blue Line.

More than 15 years ago, a Charlotte City Council plan recommended that the city buy land and take other steps to ensure the people who most need access to public transportation and jobs were not priced out.

But that didn’t happen.

Instead, the South End exploded with development after the Blue Line started running in 2007, turning into a haven for young professionals who pay $1,500 a month or more to live in new apartments near the tracks.

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Sign up today for unlimited digital access to our website, apps, the digital newspaper and more.

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Passengers cheered and clapped as Charlotte’s light-rail extension left the UNC Charlotte station at 10 a.m. Friday morning, opening the Lynx Blue line after four years of construction. Davie Hinshawdhinshaw@charlotteobserver.com

Almost none of the housing is reserved for people with lower incomes. Now, the same thing appears to be happening on the light-rail extension, which runs from uptown to UNC Charlotte.

“The talk about affordable housing was a publicity stunt, or they (city officials) don’t care about the poorest among us,” said Corine Mack, president of the Charlotte NAACP.

Almost 5,500 apartments are planned or under construction along the route. Most are high-end, luxury developments. Only a pair of developments totaling about 250 apartments, less than 5 percent of the units coming to the area, are reserved for people who need low-cost housing.

Charlotte leaders acknowledge that their strategy to draw affordable housing to the Blue Line has been ineffective. But some said affordable housing near rail lines remains an attainable goal.

Kaleia Martin, a 24-year-old recent graduate with a master’s degree in social work from UNC Chapel Hill, says she has to live with her parents because she cannot find suitable affordable housing, even with a roommate. David T. Foster III

Officials plan to explore whether low-cost housing can be built on excess land that was acquired for the extension, said Pamela Wideman, the city’s director of housing and neighborhood development.

Wideman did not provide a timetable for officials to study options or propose solutions.

“For me, a successful rail line includes diverse price points,” Wideman said. “It’s not just for wealthy people.”

But there are only about 14 acres of city-owned land left over along the 9-mile rail extension, a spokeswoman for the Charlotte Area Transit System said. Some of it is covered with stormwater runoff ponds and might not be suitable for development, and all are subject to federal restrictions that could make it more complicated to build.

Charlotte’s failure to draw more low-income housing near the rail line serves as a cautionary tale to advocates for the poor and transit planning experts, who point to other cities that have seen better outcomes.

Places such as Seattle and Denver have created public-private partnerships to provide low-cost loans for affordable housing near transit stops. City Council member LaWana Mayfield said Charlotte should have planned ahead and bought land for future affordable housing projects before private developers and real-estate speculators moved in.

LaWana Mayfield

Robert Lahser rlahser@charlotteobserver.com

“We missed a major opportunity,” said Mayfield, chair of the Housing and Neighborhood Development Committee. “When the Blue Line opened in South End, the previous council had the same opportunity. Unfortunately, we did the exact same thing our predecessors did, and missed that ball.”

‘No other plan’

When Charlotte officials began reckoning with the potential impact of light rail, the logic behind the drive for affordable housing was simple: Transit would help connect people to jobs and boost economic opportunity for residents who can’t afford a car.

A 2002 city policy that was supposed to guide development said leaders should “aggressively pursue opportunities” to partner with private companies to build low-cost housing within a 1/2-mile walking distance of transit stations.

Officials envisioned providing government subsidies to mixed-income developments where well-to-do residents would live next to families who made about $53,000 a year or less. The city should encourage “a minimum of five percent up to a maximum of 25 percent” in multifamily buildings be affordable, according to documents.

But of the nearly 4,300 new housing units built in South End since 2007, almost none are reserved for lower-income renters. South Oak Crossing, built by the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Housing Partnership near the Arrowood Station, are the only new units built along the line for affordable housing. The development includes 100 income-restricted apartments where rents range from $390 to $915, depending on how much tenants make, and 92 market-rate units that cost up to $1,025.

Read More

Rent in Charlotte has hit a new high. Here’s the average, and where it costs the most.

And Charlotte’s highest profile project along the original Blue Line fizzled. Before the light rail opened, the city spent more than $9 million buying land near South End’s Scaleybark station, clearing buildings and other site work.

Leaders agreed to sell 16 acres of land to Pappas Properties, and the private developer agreed to include 80 units of affordable housing for families making less than roughly $40,320 a year.

But more than a decade later, none of the affordable housing has been built. The land sits mostly idle, except for several dozen new townhouses under construction with prices starting around $400,000.

Read More

Charlotte spent $2 million for housing project. After 11 years, it hasn’t been built.

Former city council member Michael Barnes, a Democrat who served from 2005 to 2015, said the Scaleybark project killed momentum for affordable housing along the light rail.

“The city hung its hat on Scaleybark,” Barnes said. “There was no other plan for anything.”

Michael Barnes answers a question during The Charlotte Observer/WBTV mayoral debate sponsored by Duke Energy and hosted by Queens University of Charlotte on Tuesday, September 1, 2015.

David T. Foster III dtfoster@charlotteobserver.com

‘Out of the question’

For years, a top priority of the City Council has been to disperse affordable housing to avoid concentrations in poor neighborhoods. Clusters of poverty have been linked to crime, school segregation and other social ills.

Barnes said council members agreed that Optimist Park, Villa Heights, Belmont and other neighborhoods adjacent to the Blue Line extension would be hurt by adding government-subsidized apartments since they were already beset by poverty and blight.

“We needed to let the market lift values before we introduced affordable housing,” he said.

Former Republican city council member Kenny Smith said the issue reflects how affordable housing was not a major priority for city leaders until violence erupted after the fatal 2016 police shooting of Keith Lamont Scott. Following the unrest, city council members said they understood the frustration and vowed to restore public trust. In a letter to the community, they promised to help build or preserve 5,000 units of affordable and workforce housing over three years.

“Everybody was not on board until two years (ago),” said Smith. “The riots changed everything.”

Adding to the city’s concerns: A 2014 study from Harvard and UC-Berkeley showed that poor children in Charlotte are less likely to escape poverty than their peers in America’s 50 largest cities, ranking Charlotte dead last for economic mobility.

Now, Smith said, city leaders have few ways to bring affordable housing to the Blue Line unless they purchase property – an increasingly expensive proposition along the Blue Line route.

Kaleia Martin knows how pricey that can be.

Martin, who grew up in Charlotte and rode the light rail as a teen, has been searching for housing she can afford since she graduated last year from UNC Chapel Hill with a master’s degree in social work. But she is living in her parents house in northwest Charlotte to save money.

“It would be amazing” to live on the Blue Line, said Martin, 24, who earns about $39,000 a year. “In my situation, it doesn’t make sense to live in a $1,500 a month apartment. I’d be spending two-thirds of my income.”

“I don’t know anyone I graduated with who can afford to live on that rail line,” she said. “We already know it’s out of the question, so we don’t even plan on going there.”

‘Time for Charlotte to step up’

CATS chief executive John Lewis wants to build three new transit lines. They ‘d go to the airport, to Matthews and to Lake Norman.

“With future alignments CATS must be more strategic about land acquisition” to accommodate affordable housing, Lewis said.

But the timetable for the new rail lines is uncertain since it could cost as much as $7 billion and CATS has not said how it will pay for them.

Some affordable housing is coming to the Blue Line Extension. At North Tryon Street and Old Concord Road, Ohio-based NRP Group is planning to break ground this summer on 204 apartments reserved for people making 60 percent or less of the median income, or about $53,000 a year for a family of four.

A light rail train passes through New Bern Street at Rail Crossing Lane station heading to uptown Charlotte on Wednesday, March 28, 2018. Luxury apartments catering to young professionals have come to dominate South End, and the same sort of high-end building is marching up the light rail’s northern extension.

Jeff Siner jsiner@charlotteobserver.com

The company received $5.1 million from the city’s Housing Trust Fund last year, along with $1 million in federal housing tax credits and a $16.5 million tax-free bond issuance. NRP Group senior vice president Aaron Pechota praised the city for supporting the plan with trust fund money.

“I think the city of Charlotte’s been very proactive,” Pechota said. He said finding the site at Tryon and Old Concord took years, and that financing an affordable development — with a mix of city funds, federal tax credits, bonds and other money – is a much bigger challenge than simply building luxury apartments along the transit line.

“We found a site that needed some TLC,” he said.

But others said Charlotte has already missed its window to build any significant amount of affordable housing on the light-rail extension. Land values shot up as the opening approached, which limits the city’s ability to purchase or entice developers to build low-cost housing.

For instance, a patch of land near the future Parkwood Station sold for $525,000 in 2004, records show.

In 2013, an investor purchased the site for just under $1.6 million. Then, in 2017 NRP Group bought the land for $6.6 million — a more than four-fold increase — and started construction on 309 luxury apartments.

“We didn’t know then what we know now,” said Wideman, the city neighborhood development official. “You really have to be proactive about preserving the land.”

But advocates for the poor said Charlotte leaders should have anticipated what might happen based on their experience with the original Blue Line.

Melinda Pollack, vice president for transit-oriented development in Denver for Enterprise Community Partners, a national nonprofit focused on affordable housing, said it is well known that without significant intervention and planning from cities that transit lines are likely to primarily benefit the well-to-do.

"The land prices will escalate around these transit stops," Pollack said. "The market will price out people with lower incomes."

Michael Gallis, chief executive officer of Gallis & Associates, a Charlotte-based-developer of metropolitan planning strategies, said Charlotte’s failure to move proactively means multifamily housing along the Blue Line will remain expensive — largely excluding people who could benefit from access to jobs and educational opportunities transit can provide.

Charlotte Mecklenburg Opportunity Task Force cited a severe shortage of affordable housing as a major hurdle for Charlotte’s poor.

Rent has jumped 36 percent in the past five years in Charlotte, climbing to a monthly average $1,142. Officials acknowledge the city has an affordable housing shortfall of 34,000 units. Last year, a consultant told City Council that the biggest – a gap of more than 21,000 units – is housing for very low income renters, those making 50 percent or less of the area’s median income.

“The whole system is screwed up at this point,” Gallis said. “It’s time for Charlotte to step up.”

In Durham, officials who plan to build light rail have set a goal of having at least 15 percent of housing units within a half-mile of stations be for residents earning less than 60 percent of the average median income.

“Our light rail is probably 10 or 12 years out,” said Terry Allebaugh, a member of the Coalition for Affordable Housing and Transit in Durham, an advocacy group that pushed for inclusion of affordable housing.

“We want to discuss now how we can ensure people who need transit can live there," he said. “People said ‘Charlotte didn’t have these discussions and look what happened there.’ ”

Clasen-Kelly: 704 358-5027

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[globalfilesystem]

‘We missed a major opportunity.’ Affordable housing lags near new Charlotte light rail | Myrtle Beach Sun News

Long before the mid-March grand opening of Charlotte’s light-rail extension, city leaders vowed to help build affordable housing along the Blue Line.

More than 15 years ago, a Charlotte City Council plan recommended that the city buy land and take other steps to ensure the people who most need access to public transportation and jobs were not priced out.

But that didn’t happen.

Instead, the South End exploded with development after the Blue Line started running in 2007, turning into a haven for young professionals who pay $1,500 a month or more to live in new apartments near the tracks.

Never miss a local story.

Sign up today for unlimited digital access to our website, apps, the digital newspaper and more.

SUBSCRIBE NOW

Passengers cheered and clapped as Charlotte’s light-rail extension left the UNC Charlotte station at 10 a.m. Friday morning, opening the Lynx Blue line after four years of construction. Davie Hinshawdhinshaw@charlotteobserver.com

Almost none of the housing is reserved for people with lower incomes. Now, the same thing appears to be happening on the light-rail extension, which runs from uptown to UNC Charlotte.

“The talk about affordable housing was a publicity stunt, or they (city officials) don’t care about the poorest among us,” said Corine Mack, president of the Charlotte NAACP.

Almost 5,500 apartments are planned or under construction along the route. Most are high-end, luxury developments. Only a pair of developments totaling about 250 apartments, less than 5 percent of the units coming to the area, are reserved for people who need low-cost housing.

Charlotte leaders acknowledge that their strategy to draw affordable housing to the Blue Line has been ineffective. But some said affordable housing near rail lines remains an attainable goal.

Kaleia Martin, a 24-year-old recent graduate with a master’s degree in social work from UNC Chapel Hill, says she has to live with her parents because she cannot find suitable affordable housing, even with a roommate. David T. Foster III

Officials plan to explore whether low-cost housing can be built on excess land that was acquired for the extension, said Pamela Wideman, the city’s director of housing and neighborhood development.

Wideman did not provide a timetable for officials to study options or propose solutions.

“For me, a successful rail line includes diverse price points,” Wideman said. “It’s not just for wealthy people.”

But there are only about 14 acres of city-owned land left over along the 9-mile rail extension, a spokeswoman for the Charlotte Area Transit System said. Some of it is covered with stormwater runoff ponds and might not be suitable for development, and all are subject to federal restrictions that could make it more complicated to build.

Charlotte’s failure to draw more low-income housing near the rail line serves as a cautionary tale to advocates for the poor and transit planning experts, who point to other cities that have seen better outcomes.

Places such as Seattle and Denver have created public-private partnerships to provide low-cost loans for affordable housing near transit stops. City Council member LaWana Mayfield said Charlotte should have planned ahead and bought land for future affordable housing projects before private developers and real-estate speculators moved in.

LaWana Mayfield

Robert Lahser rlahser@charlotteobserver.com

“We missed a major opportunity,” said Mayfield, chair of the Housing and Neighborhood Development Committee. “When the Blue Line opened in South End, the previous council had the same opportunity. Unfortunately, we did the exact same thing our predecessors did, and missed that ball.”

‘No other plan’

When Charlotte officials began reckoning with the potential impact of light rail, the logic behind the drive for affordable housing was simple: Transit would help connect people to jobs and boost economic opportunity for residents who can’t afford a car.

A 2002 city policy that was supposed to guide development said leaders should “aggressively pursue opportunities” to partner with private companies to build low-cost housing within a 1/2-mile walking distance of transit stations.

Officials envisioned providing government subsidies to mixed-income developments where well-to-do residents would live next to families who made about $53,000 a year or less. The city should encourage “a minimum of five percent up to a maximum of 25 percent” in multifamily buildings be affordable, according to documents.

But of the nearly 4,300 new housing units built in South End since 2007, almost none are reserved for lower-income renters. South Oak Crossing, built by the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Housing Partnership near the Arrowood Station, are the only new units built along the line for affordable housing. The development includes 100 income-restricted apartments where rents range from $390 to $915, depending on how much tenants make, and 92 market-rate units that cost up to $1,025.

Read More

Rent in Charlotte has hit a new high. Here’s the average, and where it costs the most.

And Charlotte’s highest profile project along the original Blue Line fizzled. Before the light rail opened, the city spent more than $9 million buying land near South End’s Scaleybark station, clearing buildings and other site work.

Leaders agreed to sell 16 acres of land to Pappas Properties, and the private developer agreed to include 80 units of affordable housing for families making less than roughly $40,320 a year.

But more than a decade later, none of the affordable housing has been built. The land sits mostly idle, except for several dozen new townhouses under construction with prices starting around $400,000.

Read More

Charlotte spent $2 million for housing project. After 11 years, it hasn’t been built.

Former city council member Michael Barnes, a Democrat who served from 2005 to 2015, said the Scaleybark project killed momentum for affordable housing along the light rail.

“The city hung its hat on Scaleybark,” Barnes said. “There was no other plan for anything.”

Charlotte Democratic mayoral candidates Michael Barnes answers a question during The Charlotte Observer/WBTV mayoral debate sponsored by Duke Energy and hosted by Queens University of Charlotte on Tuesday, September 1, 2015.

David T. Foster III dtfoster@charlotteobserver.com

‘Out of the question’

For years, a top priority of the City Council has been to disperse affordable housing to avoid concentrations in poor neighborhoods. Clusters of poverty have been linked to crime, school segregation and other social ills.

Barnes said council members agreed that Optimist Park, Villa Heights, Belmont and other neighborhoods adjacent to the Blue Line extension would be hurt by adding government-subsidized apartments since they were already beset by poverty and blight.

“We needed to let the market lift values before we introduced affordable housing,” he said.

Former Republican city council member Kenny Smith said the issue reflects how affordable housing was not a major priority for city leaders until violence erupted after the fatal 2016 police shooting of Keith Lamont Scott. Following the unrest, city council members said they understood the frustration and vowed to restore public trust. In a letter to the community, they promised to help build or preserve 5,000 units of affordable and workforce housing over three years.

“Everybody was not on board until two years (ago),” said Smith. “The riots changed everything.”

Adding to the city’s concerns: A 2014 study from Harvard and UC-Berkeley showed that poor children in Charlotte are less likely to escape poverty than their peers in America’s 50 largest cities, ranking Charlotte dead last for economic mobility.

Now, Smith said, city leaders have few ways to bring affordable housing to the Blue Line unless they purchase property – an increasingly expensive proposition along the Blue Line route.

Kaleia Martin knows how pricey that can be.

Martin, who grew up in Charlotte and rode the light rail as a teen, has been searching for housing she can afford since she graduated last year from UNC Chapel Hill with a master’s degree in social work. But she is living in her parents house in northwest Charlotte to save money.

“It would be amazing” to live on the Blue Line, said Martin, 24, who earns about $39,000 a year. “In my situation, it doesn’t make sense to live in a $1,500 a month apartment. I’d be spending two-thirds of my income.”

“I don’t know anyone I graduated with who can afford to live on that rail line,” she said. “We already know it’s out of the question, so we don’t even plan on going there.”

‘Time for Charlotte to step up’

CATS chief executive John Lewis wants to build three new transit lines. They ‘d go to the airport, to Matthews and to Lake Norman.

“With future alignments CATS must be more strategic about land acquisition” to accommodate affordable housing, Lewis said.

But the timetable for the new rail lines is uncertain since it could cost as much as $7 billion and CATS has not said how it will pay for them.

Some affordable housing is coming to the Blue Line Extension. At North Tryon Street and Old Concord Road, Ohio-based NRP Group is planning to break ground this summer on 204 apartments reserved for people making 60 percent or less of the median income, or about $53,000 a year for a family of four.

A light rail train passes through New Bern Street at Rail Crossing Lane station heading to uptown Charlotte on Wednesday, March 28, 2018. Luxury apartments catering to young professionals have come to dominate South End, and the same sort of high-end building is marching up the light rail’s northern extension.

Jeff Siner jsiner@charlotteobserver.com

The company received $5.1 million from the city’s Housing Trust Fund last year, along with $1 million in federal housing tax credits and a $16.5 million tax-free bond issuance. NRP Group senior vice president Aaron Pechota praised the city for supporting the plan with trust fund money.

“I think the city of Charlotte’s been very proactive,” Pechota said. He said finding the site at Tryon and Old Concord took years, and that financing an affordable development — with a mix of city funds, federal tax credits, bonds and other money – is a much bigger challenge than simply building luxury apartments along the transit line.

“We found a site that needed some TLC,” he said.

But others said Charlotte has already missed its window to build any significant amount of affordable housing on the light-rail extension. Land values shot up as the opening approached, which limits the city’s ability to purchase or entice developers to build low-cost housing.

For instance, a patch of land near the future Parkwood Station sold for $525,000 in 2004, records show.

In 2013, an investor purchased the site for just under $1.6 million. Then, in 2017 NRP Group bought the land for $6.6 million — a more than four-fold increase — and started construction on 309 luxury apartments.

“We didn’t know then what we know now,” said Wideman, the city neighborhood development official. “You really have to be proactive about preserving the land.”

But advocates for the poor said Charlotte leaders should have anticipated what might happen based on their experience with the original Blue Line.

Melinda Pollack, vice president for transit-oriented development in Denver for Enterprise Community Partners, a national nonprofit focused on affordable housing, said it is well known that without significant intervention and planning from cities that transit lines are likely to primarily benefit the well-to-do.

"The land prices will escalate around these transit stops," Pollack said. "The market will price out people with lower incomes."

Michael Gallis, chief executive officer of Gallis & Associates, a Charlotte-based-developer of metropolitan planning strategies, said Charlotte’s failure to move proactively means multifamily housing along the Blue Line will remain expensive — largely excluding people who could benefit from access to jobs and educational opportunities transit can provide.

Charlotte Mecklenburg Opportunity Task Force cited a severe shortage of affordable housing as a major hurdle for Charlotte’s poor.

Rent has jumped 36 percent in the past five years in Charlotte, climbing to a monthly average $1,142. Officials acknowledge the city has an affordable housing shortfall of 34,000 units. Last year, a consultant told City Council that the biggest – a gap of more than 21,000 units – is housing for very low income renters, those making 50 percent or less of the area’s median income.

“The whole system is screwed up at this point,” Gallis said. “It’s time for Charlotte to step up.”

In Durham, officials who plan to build light rail have set a goal of having at least 15 percent of housing units within a half-mile of stations be for residents earning less than 60 percent of the average median income.

“Our light rail is probably 10 or 12 years out,” said Terry Allebaugh, a member of the Coalition for Affordable Housing and Transit in Durham, an advocacy group that pushed for inclusion of affordable housing.

“We want to discuss now how we can ensure people who need transit can live there," he said. “People said ‘Charlotte didn’t have these discussions and look what happened there.’ ”

Clasen-Kelly: 704 358-5027

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[coolrockinbones]

Terry Corin & Her Boyfriends - Sick! Sick! Sick!

Terry Corin & Her Boyfriends – Sick! Sick! Sick!

Terry Corin had her eye on the prize back in the early ’60s, but came up just short not for lack of effort.  Her first recorded solo and later with vocal backing. The nifty “My Ding Dong Heart” on the Mohawk Records label, of Dion & The Belmonts fame,  was recorded in their tiny studio on Broadway in the Big Apple. She also released several singles as Terry Corin & The Mellos and Terry Corin &…

[jinks050]

Dropping off my art of my mafia boss, Dominic Bruno Bernardi aka “Domino”, more well known as the semi-immortal bastard that just will not shut up much to the chagrin of mostly everyone he meets.

In this case, my friend’s oc, Corin Belmonte, who wishes Dom will leave him alone already because he’s dealing with his own being alive against all odds issues in our vigilante verse. (Also, I was really proud of how this scene parody of Fox in Space came out)