HIBBING — The Hibbing City Council will have a special meeting Monday, July 1, in response to opposition to a planned public housing project on the site of Cobb Cook Park.
According to the agenda, the Council will decide whether to rescind a purchase agreement between the city and the Housing and Redevelopment Authority of Hibbing, approved at the June 5 meeting.
The agreement outlines the sale of the park land to the HRA for $1, contingent on the $25 million project receiving a $22 million grant from the Minnesota Housing Finance Agency. The planned 52-unit project would partially replace the blighted Haven Court, also known as Greenhaven Apartments.
The Council will also broadly discuss HRA housing and consider offering another parcel to the HRA, a 5-acre lot behind Grace Lutheran Church.
Over 80 people attended a Save Cobb Cook Park rally before the Hibbing City Council meeting Wednesday, opposing the city’s sale of the park. Nine residents addressed the Council during the meeting.
Local organizers created the Cobb Cook Coalition in opposition to the park’s sale and have spent the last two weeks collecting signatures and making signs. Ashton Martin, a founder of the coalition, led the rally, inviting attendees to speak and reading speeches written by others. She said in an interview Friday that the group is excited to hear what the Council will say Monday.
“After the City Council meeting and the citizen forum that had occurred, they really listened, and I think every one of them came back from that wondering if the process was right or if they need to reconsider their vote,” Martin said.
Applications for the MHFA grant are also due Monday, leaving Hibbing’s plans in question.
HRA Executive Director Jackie Prescott could not be reached for comment on Friday.
Following Wednesday’s public comment, Councilor Justin Fosso said he can no longer support the project unless the HRA can come to an agreement with the community.
“The need for this project is great, and housing continues to be a crisis especially for our low-income sector,” he said. “ ... The questions and feedback that we hear about the reduction of currently utilized greenspace, increased congestion in the neighborhood, options for community input and lack of partnership, does not really make this a project I can support at this time.”
No other councilors commented during the meeting. Councilor John Schweiberger posted in a Hibbing Facebook group Thursday, thanking the community for coming together the night before.
“If there’s still time, and I believe there is. We as the city and HRA shall make one last effort to make sure we exhausted all our options for the location,” he wrote.
Some opponents have criticized the lack of transparency and community involvement throughout the process.
Residents said they felt blindsided by the Council’s decision to sell the park. While the HRA officially shared its plans for the project on June 2, the agency had earlier discussions with its public housing residents and has been trying to build new housing to replace the blighted apartments for years.
Opponents say the short notice was not adequate time to share their feelings before the Council made its decision, and they allege the timeline was deliberate.
Martin presented the Council with over 800 signed letters that include that allegation on Wednesday.
“The Hibbing HRA deliberately left out the majority of Hibbing residents when planning this project,” the letters read. “ ... By purposefully excluding the majority of Hibbing residents on planning/feedback on this project, the Hibbing HRA has divided the community, showing that their loyalty only lies with their tenants and not the community as a whole.”
Organizer Erin Ningen said if residents had been included in discussions about the project sooner, the reaction may have been different.
“The problem is that they did not include us,” Ningen said. “ ... Had they involved us, they would have a lot of community support, even for the funding down at the Minnesota Housing Finance Agency. I mean, I work at a local restaurant, I get [the need for affordable housing].”
The Cobb Cook Coalition organizers have pursued any avenue they can think of to save the park. They refute claims that the park is underutilized; generations have made memories at the over-a-century-old park, and it is the only greenspace in that part of the city.
They’ve looked at the original document donating the land to the city in 1916, which indicates the land must always remain a park — though this legal interpretation has not yet been affirmed by a lawyer. Martin presented the document to the Council with the letters.
The coalition also says preserving the park honors the legacy of the veterans it’s named for: Fred Cobb and Earl Cook, two of the first Hibbing soldiers killed in World War I. Martin shared a poem written by Cook’s mother about the loss of her son.
The group said they’re considering legal action and were planning to lobby MHFA to deny funding to the project, preventing the sale of the park and thus its development.
Martin has explicitly stated the coalition supports the project, just not the location, and doesn’t endorse the concerns some have expressed about crime and other negative aspects they say come with public housing. None of the residents who addressed the Council made those arguments, but as opponents of the project left the meeting following the public comment period, one man shouted about the crime at Greenhaven Apartments and suggested the chief of police to talk about it.
Heather Bertram, a Greenhaven resident, addressed the Council on Wednesday, refuting the statements of “not in our neighborhood” she’s heard recently.
“I would like to thank Jackie [Prescott] and the Board for seeing the terrible condition our housing is in and for coming up with a plan to fix it,” Bertram said. “Thank you for seeing our potential and supporting us.”
Prescott also addressed the Council, explaining the Cobb Cook site is the most competitive for MHFA funding and why other sites were ruled out. She also said the HRA talked with neighboring Range Mental Health Center about utilizing its greenspace for community activities, in addition to the 12,600-square-foot play area already included in the project.
“I recognize change is hard, and I personally grew up in that park as well. I have family that live very close to that park, and I spent a lot of my life in there,” Prescott said in an interview after the meeting. “ ... I think it’s a really great project, but I’m not trying to convince anyone. Really, I’m just working for the betterment of the whole community.”
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