Spartanburg City News

As you may have , Oakview Apartments has one of the highest concentrations of poverty and crime in our city. Inside the cinderblock walls of the property's 105 units, 75 percent of residents earn less than $5,000 per year and live in conditions one resident described as "one step up from being homeless." Tearing down this barracks-style low income apartment complex on Howard Street and replacing it with a new community center has long been a central piece of the Northside Initiative, but before that can happen, the property and the privately-owned, publicly-subsidized housing complex that sits on it has to be purchased.     Oakview's owner, Related Properties, is principally owned by Stephen Ross, the multi-billionaire owner of the Miami Dolphins. Despite City estimates that value the property at roughly $600,000, Related's price is $2.5 million, far more than the Northside Development Corporation, the City, or any of our other partners on the Northside are willing or able to pay. The result being that, for n