FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WANE) — At Thursday’s Fort Wayne Board of Zoning appeals meeting, tensions continued to be high over the proposed immigration center set to take over an old missionary building at the corner of South Wayne Ave. and Rudisill Blvd.
The proposed project, led by three investors Scott Jester, Jeff Bower, and Jon Gerst, would be a mixed-use facility offering residential spaces for immigrants and office spaces for non-profits offering services to help them acclimate better into the community.
The project has yet to become official as the investors need the building to be rezoned for use from its previous drug rehabilitation center zoning.
The meeting was filled with neighbors who expressed concerns as to how ‘The Refuge’ would impact their property taxes and traffic. A smaller few expressed concerns about who would be staying in the immigrant center, linking immigrants to increases in drugs and crime.
“Our neighborhood supports Haitian refugees. This was proposed to us from the beginning as a refugee center, that’s why it’s called the Refuge,” Jim Sack, West Rudisill Neighborhood Association President said.
Sack told the investors that he would accept a variance- something that doesn’t continue with the property but dies with the re-sale if ‘The Refuge’ were to fail. They proposed a multi-use variance which continues with the property which Sack said he cannot accept.
“There’s no enforcement in the City of Fort Wayne so if they get a land use variance 2,3,4 years from now if the same staff isn’t in place that recognizes the change then they can do things in that building that are deleterious to the neighborhood,” said Sack.
Investor, Jeff Bower believes that the neighborhood’s opposition is due to misinformation about the immigration center.
“So, I would comment more into the cultural sensitivity that we’ve all experienced as a nation over these last 4 years, specifically with an influx of immigration. And that has become such a hot-button topic that people are using it to garner likes, garner eyeballs on their articles and on their media commentary. I think that has a lot to do with stirring up the neighborhood specifically,” Bower said.
“But we do care about the neighbors, we do care about the project, and we do care about our international guests around us. So, we really are looking for a solution to participate in helping.”
Investor, John Gerst also mentioned during the hearing that misinformation may have led to the hundreds of flyers from the Ku Klux Klan appearing in the Southwood Park neighborhood.
Bower addressed concerns from neighbors of how these immigrants would be vetted, not by the investors, but by the non-profits providing the services.
“We’re looking for people that are legally here and they will be paying rent just the same you,” Bower said.
“We’re looking for people that have jobs that are looking for a fair market, modest apartment to live in who happen to be immigrants so that we can tag team some of the undergirding services that help people to integrate into a community. We want to aid them in getting them healthily integrated into our system and broaden our family.”
Bower also wanted to make it clear to the community that property values would only go up, saying that as the building stands zero tax revenue is being generated. He wants to honor the building by beautifying it based on the codes provided by the Department of Planning Services.
“Actually allowing it to be business space, bringing in a handful of guests and residents there brings life into the neighborhood. It helps to bring additional revenue to the surrounding businesses,” Bower said.
The board decided to keep the public hearing open until their next meeting in January.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
