Roanoke, Virginia – Roanoke is witnessing a rejuvenation of public housing, driven by the city’s housing authority, which aspires to erect an initial residential complex comprising of 86 units in Northwest Roanoke. This endeavor would represent the authority’s first extensive development in several decades.
The Roanoke Redevelopment and Housing Authority Commissioners gave their consent on Monday to acquire a 12-acre property at the junction of Shenandoah Avenue and Peters Creek Road, proposed to house the new complex. The vacant plot, currently owned by the state agency Virginia Housing, previously housed Ashton Hill apartments and was known earlier as the Spanish Trace apartments.
This proposed development would stand as the authority’s inaugural large-scale project since the transformation and rebranding of the Lincoln Terrace project as The Villages at Lincoln around twenty years prior. It would also be the first significant public housing project in Roanoke that does not supersede an earlier one since the 1970s.
David Bustamante, the executive director of the authority, stated, “For us, this is a big deal. We’re doing everything that we can to try to deal with this housing crisis. And we understand that 86 units might not seem like a lot, but it’s going to cost us a lot, and it’s going to add 86 more people, give them the opportunity to find a place to live.”
Virginia Housing has agreed to transfer the land to the housing authority for a sum of $750,000, as revealed by Bustamante to the commissioners.
The forthcoming project represents a “repositioning” from the traditional public housing model to one supported by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Section 8 housing voucher programs. This innovative model makes the construction of new subsidized housing more accessible.
Furthermore, the new project is expected to transition from public housing to Section 8, operated by private landlords, which theoretically allows public housing authorities to build new affordable housing without surpassing the unit count that HUD finances.
Approximately 5% of Roanoke’s population resides in public housing, with a larger number in subsidized accommodation. Recent studies reveal Roanoke’s need for over 3,500 affordable housing units.
The initial phase of the project entails 86 units, presumably in the form of fourplexes, with the potential for more apartments in the future.
Reflecting the shift in public housing development, Bustamante expressed reservations about high-density projects. He remarked, “I really don’t want to have that much density. Because it would sort of be similar to what we have here, Lansdowne [Park], which creates a lot of unnecessary crime, too many low-income housing people living together. It’s not a good recipe for self-sufficiency and moving forward and finding jobs and doing all these kinds of things.”
Apartments first rose on the property in 1969. Following a series of ownership transfers and a devastating arson incident in 1976, Virginia Housing purchased the property in 2006, and it has been vacant since the low-rent apartments were demolished in 2011 due to a lack of demand.
