Topline: Taxpayers in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, spent $670,000 on an empty parking lot this summer, but Amiracle4sure, the nonprofit in charge, does not seem concerned about the price. In an interview with PennLive, Executive Director Marsha Curry-Nixon credited the sale to “divine intervention” and said she “didn’t care” what the empty lot was actually worth.
Key facts: The lot will be used to house a local homeless population that was forced out of a “tent city” due to highway construction. Amiracle4sure owns the 3.5-acre lot — which they’ve dubbed the “miracle community” — but they bought it using a grant from the county’s Emergency Rental Assistance Program.
It’s unclear why the lot was so expensive. The previous owners, DB Real Estate and Properties LLC, bought it for just $225,000 in 2023. They’ll now make a huge profit “without making any obvious improvements to the land or any changes to the zoning,” PennLive reported. DB Real Estate’s broker, Gary Lenker, is on the board of the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency.
Dauphin County is usually required to get two separate appraisals before buying a property to avoid overpaying. But since the lot is technically not owned by the county, officials were able to ignore the rule. Amiracle4sure instead asked for a “restricted” appraisal that PennLive says “leaves out many details.”
Curry-Nixon did not tell PennLive why she opted for a restricted appraisal. “That ain’t news,” she said. “I didn’t care. None of that mattered to me, and it shouldn’t matter to anybody else either.”
Amiracle4sure received the grant without a competitive process. County Human Services Director Randie Yeager told PennLive they were “the only entity who was willing to work on this effort.”
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Critical quote: Economist Gilles Duranton of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania told PennLive the sharp increase in price in two years was “unusual.”
“It’s hard to tell for sure there is something nefarious going on,” Duranton said in an email. He said “incompetence” is “often a better explanation.”
Summary: Instead of potentially overpaying for an empty parking lot, Dauphin County should be using its money to find lasting solutions to its homelessness problem.
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This article was originally published by RealClearInvestigations and made available via RealClearWire.
