GRTC site to be used for affordable housing?

Richmond plans a public debate over the future of GRTC Transit System's historic headquarters next to the Fan District, but the role of affordable housing in the project already is an issue.

Affordable housing is listed as the goal of Mayor Dwight C. Jones and the mission of the Richmond Redevelopment & Housing Authority in a written proposal for the city to buy the property, which is appraised at up to $5.4 million.

The 6.8-acre site is at 101 S. Davis along the 2400-2500 blocks of West Cary Street.

However, the chairman of the housing authority said the proposal is not aimed at developing low-income housing on the property.

"Personally, I don't think that would be the appropriate spot for it," Elliott M. Harrigan, chairman of the RRHA Board of Commissioners, said yesterday.

Tammy D. Hawley, the mayor's press secretary, reiterated yesterday that the administration has not begun to consider how the property might be developed if the city is able to acquire it. "No specific plans for this site have been determined," she said.

Harrigan, owner of a real estate company that operates outside of Richmond, said he met with the mayor more than two months ago about the administration's proposal for RRHA to acquire the GRTC property and oversee its redevelopment.

"I asked whether this was going to have a low-income housing component in it, and my understanding was that it would not," he said. Instead, Harrigan said Jones wants the authority to buy and hold the property, while a new city committee conducts a public process to determine its best use. The site includes buildings constructed more than a century ago to house the city's trolley cars. The project also would depend on the City Council appropriating up to $5 million to buy the property from GRTC over 20 years.

However, the administration's plan already has rankled City Councilman E. Martin Jewell, whose 5th District includes the GRTC property.

"I find it interesting that they would contemplate being a real estate broker," by buying the property and flipping it to a developer, Jewell said yesterday. "It is a prized piece of land whose highest and best use would not necessarily be affordable housing."

T.K. Somanath, executive director of the Better Housing Coalition, has overseen the development of 100 units of affordable housing along West Cary Street within several blocks of the GRTC property. "I think there could be a component for affordable housing," he said yesterday.

The proposal was approved by the housing authority board in May, but not by GRTC's board of directors, which first learned of the project at a meeting in mid-June, according to Chairman Daniel K. Smith. The board has seen the proposed contract but will not be prepared to act before its August meeting, Smith said yesterday. "We have not made any decision regarding that contract whatsoever."

Smith was appointed to the six-member board by Chesterfield County, which owns half of the transit system. He said he has discussed the proposal with Chesterfield County Administrator James J.L. Stegmaier and Supervisor Daniel A. Gecker

"One goal, first and foremost, is to get fair market value for the property," Smith said.

The transit system has received an appraisal that values the property between $4.7 million and $5.4 million, according to an eight-page overview prepared by GRTC and RRHA attorneys. The money would be paid over 20 years, with an interest rate of 5 percent.

In addition to providing a long-term revenue stream, the proposal would enable GRTC to avoid hiring a consultant to help it sell the property, said John M. Lewis Jr., chief executive officer of the transit company. "What makes the deal attractive to GRTC is that it's clean."

GRTC would bear the cost of identifying and cleaning up any environmental contamination of the property, which has eight underground fuel storage tanks. Lewis said the system has money reserved in its capital budget to cover those costs, which could exceed $1 million.

The written overview of the proposal does not say what uses the city would propose for the property, which is part of the Fan Area Historic District Extension in the National Register of Historic Places. However, the proposal cites the "administration's goal to provide high quality affordable housing within the city" and the RRHA's mission "to be the catalyst for quality affordable housing and community revitalization."

Contact Michael Martz at (804) 649-6964 or .

Contact Will Jones at (804) 649-6911 or .