COEUR d'ALENE - Defining workforce housing was at the center of a special meeting of the Lake City Development Corp. Tuesday night on the proposed mixed-use development in midtown.

The development, which is slated for the corner of Fourth Street and Roosevelt Avenue, will be a three-story building with retail space on the ground floor and two levels of workforce housing.

Interim City Administrator Troy Tymesen was first to address the midtown stakeholders gathered at the meeting by defining what type of people would qualify for the housing.

"If they have negative credit, slope credit, or bankruptcy, those folks don't qualify," Tymesen said. "If any references come back negative, they won't get in. A felony conviction is not allowed for individuals wishing to move into these properties. And rejection will occur if their income is not at least twice the monthly rent. The selection process and the bar we hold is quite high."

Douglas Peterson, director of The Housing Company -a Boise-based nonprofit which facilitates the development ofaffordable housing - then addressed his company's role as the primary developer and caretaker of the mixed-use development.

The development would be staffed around the clock by a manager. That manager, according to Peterson, would ensure that residents who are there qualify to be there - even if that person is a new boyfriend, girlfriend, or a brother who moves in after a lease is signed.

"We police our buildings very heavily," Peterson said. "If you don't, that leads to problems. We do a bang-up job."

Peterson also highlighted the types of individuals who would qualify and live in the proposed development. Based on his inquiries to multiple Kootenai County job providers, Peterson said those individuals could range from a city of Coeur d'Alene employee to a radiology technician at Kootenai Health.

"They all pay taxes, no one receives any subsidy from the state or housing company," Peterson said.

After 15 years, the development could be converted to condominiums and sold to renters, which, according to Peterson, would allow The Housing Company to recoup some of its losses on the $9.5 million project.

Once Peterson concluded his presentation, several of the attendees expressed their concerns with the project as a whole. Gregg Johnson, who has spoken in the past on behalf of the Midtown Neighborhood Association, said the development "may not be the perfect fit."

"We're a little more than six years into this and we have the exact same presentation of fine-tuning this project," Johnson said. "And it's not anywhere closer to answering the questions that these folks have. I just see this all over again; we have not progressed at all. I hope from this point we get to move toward a new direction. This piece of property may not be the right spot for this due to the impact that it will have in the spot that it's in."

LCDC ChairmanDenny Davis responded by saying the board wants to do something stakeholders love.

"I kind of think on my own part, you're seeing some boogeyman that I'm not seeing," Davis said. "There's a big missing piece in terms of your objection in finding and identifying out there any kind of entity, private or otherwise, that will construct something on that site that fits your ideas. We've talked to different people and not many of them over the years have come in with a proposal. Where the rubber meets the road is that either we do something in the next few years or the property is just going to sit like it is."

Johnson said Davis' assessment was fair, but added that "maybe that's OK."

After the two-hour meeting, LCDC Executive Director Tony Berns told The Press he feels the midtown development is a good fit for the area and that further discussion will be had on the issue at next week's board meeting.