A plan to revitalize Gilpin Court
ICON ARCHITECTURE
Public-housing units in Gilpin Court will be replaced under a plan to renovate the area over the next ten years.
VIDEO: Redevelopment of Gilpin Court
Richmond officials last night showed off their plans to transform one of the city's toughest neighborhoods into a vibrant mixed-used community.
About 100 residents of the Gilpin Court public-housing project watched as Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority staff members and representatives of two architectural firms spelled out their vision for a $503 million revitalization of the area, which includes less poverty and stronger ties to the downtown community just across Interstate 95.
In the coming decade, the foreboding blocks of apartment buildings could give way to a community of homes, businesses, schools and government agencies known as North Jackson Ward.
It would represent the area's first major attempt at decentralizing poverty, a key goal of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and a driving force for the RRHA's executive director, Anthony Scott.
If the plan plays out according to Scott's vision, the residents would represent a true slice of the area: some on public assistance, some not, but neither side distinguishable from the other.
They would live in a neighborhood that includes everything they would need and want. And, playing off the proximity to the city's convention center, the new neighborhood would be skirted by hotels and other traveler-friendly amenities.
It would have 1,600 to 2,000 housing units, including 480 to 600 subsidized units. Although that's a decrease from the area's current 800 units, no RRHA resident would lose housing because of the project.
Several residents asked about that last night, with varying degrees of clarity.
Scott assured them that "public-housing families are our first and foremost priority, period." A later promise that new development would be open to current residents assuaged the concerns of some.
The housing authority will unveil a similar plan for the Dove Street neighborhood tonight at Overby-Sheppard Elementary School.
The North Jackson Ward project is scheduled to take eight to 10 years. Construction most likely would begin on vacant and commercial space along First Street and work its way back into the neighborhood.
But with funding and approval stages still to come, RRHA officials don't expect demolition to begin for at least three years. The project would be funded with a combination of local, state and federal tax dollars and private investment. The varying stages would require the approval of the city and, in any case that involves the displacement of residents, HUD.
It's no accident that the revitalization project is beginning in Gilpin Court, or that the name would change to North Jackson Ward.
"It's our most viable location," Scott said last week.
"It's going to be a model for how public housing should change," he said. "We know our strengths: We're property developers and managers. But we can facilitate other change. We want to be the catalyst."
A test of that possibility could come on what now is a swath of open land just outside the Calhoun Center.
In Scott's vision, a school would rise there. But for anything to happen, the city and its school system would have to agree.
"We're going to challenge the way things are done now," Scott said.
Contact Zachary Reid at (804) 775-8179 or
.
Advertisement
Reader Reactions
Give it 5 years. The new Gilpin court will look just like the Gilpin court….guaranteed! Buildings do not make up neighborhoods….people do.
This is a step in the right direction for Richmond. Everyone needs to get over their prejudices.
“to find many hard working TAX PAYING citizens willing to live next to non-working TAX TAKING deadbeats!“
Two words: Corporate Welfare. Corporate executives paying themselves hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses while dodging taxes and dipping their hands into tax revenues to bail out their mistakes. Why in the world are all of you so exercised about poor people? In fact, the general ugliness and racism of comments about “them” by all the Richmond sad sacks makes me wonder what the average age of the people commenting is. 82?
There are a few posts on here that provide good explanations as to why it can work and rationales for spending the money. I have a cynical streak. Some of it came from working in these communities and witnessing the depravity of the housing projects, too, but the weight of evidence seems to be in favor of undertaking some kind of redevelopment effort.
The way I’m coming to see it, the bottom line is that we’re paying for it one way or another. Our money can get poured into the same old failed programs which fuel a cycle of poverty, failure, crime, and prison, or we can try putting it towards something which could potentially benefit society in the long run. It costs ~$29,000 to keep an inmate in jail in VA for a year. How long would it take to recoup the costs if we actually did whatever was necessary to make it a habitable place?
It’s at least a better idea than the 6th Street Marketplace.
_
Clearly there is a great deal of ignorance in our community about what public housing is or isn’t! For some of you who think the resolution to poverty is to keep in all in one place and “out of the counties”...I recommend you do a bit more research on how mixed-income communities work…and work well. If you’ve never known anything but poverty, how are you supposed to learn? Yes, there are multiple generations of families living in public housing - one of the many reasons for this situation is because the government has perpetuated this by incenting staying there. Another issue is….you don’t want “them” in your neighborhoods. Well I hate to tell you this…but you already have poor people and THUGS living in your neighborhoods. A great deal of drug arrests made in Gilpin are actually folks coming from surrounding counties to buy their drugs.
It appears that a good number of you want to blame all residents of public housing for problems in those communities. How will our kids ever learn there is something better…how will they learn that they are as good, as smart, or as capable as any of your children. We can’t blame them for their parents mis-steps or possible poor decisions or maybe simply they lost a job. Not everyone has the same support system many of us have that we can count on in the event we were to lose our jobs.
I would also recommend that some of you actually attend some of the public meetings held to discuss the development that will be taking place in these areas. Have you considered that? Actually become informed before passing judgement!
My my, nothing gets the self-righteousness going like a discussion about the urban poor. I agree that public housing is one of the all-time public policy disasters, but it’s here, it’s real, you’re already paying to support it as a taxpayer, and it’s only going to get worse unless something is done.
RRHA is stuck between a rock and a hard place. The standards of eligibility for public housing are rigidly enforced by HUD, and groups like Legal Aid are willing to sue at the drop of hat if they believe someone is being unfairly evicted or denied housing. You can’t just kick someone out for being there too long, for having thug relatives who don’t live there but who come by and cause trouble, or for being a “mooch.“ Congress has been cutting maintenance funding for years, so of course the buildings get run down. RRHA also can’t sell any of the buildings or close them down permanently without HUD approval, and there is a whole raft of regulations that go with that.
So, what would you have RRHA do? Business as usual doesn’t deliver results that anyone particularly likes, and it isn’t a sustainable option anyway. They can’t just kick everyone out through a project like this and rebuild entirely market-rate; HUD would never agree to that and Legal Aid would tie things up with lawsuits. So RRHA is left with the mixed-income option. I can sympathize with the opinion that public housing should be eliminated entirely, but that is not an option for RRHA because of the federal oversight. Take it up with Congress if you don’t like it.
There is a misperception that taxpayer money is going to be the primary driver behind this mixed-income redevelopment. It is not. The plan is to leverage the value of the underlying land to attract private capital. The gaps will be filled by tax credits, and the rental subsidy for the low-income units will come from the federal public housing program (just like now) and perhaps some Section 8. So as a taxpayer, you will be paying no more than you do now but with the hope of achieving much better results.
Again, if you don’t like public housing as a concept or don’t like the federal regulations that govern its administration, take it up with Congress. In the meantime, Gilpin Court is a real problem that requires real solutions, not more contemptuous potshots from the self-righteous. If anyone has a better, REALISTIC idea than what is being proposed, let’s hear it.
There seems to be two people posting as City resident. The issue here seems to be prejudice of the poor. Those of you who protest against cleaning up this neighborhood need to know that when this project is started the residents of this very same community will be given section 8 certificates and sent into your neighborhood to find housing. That includes Henrico and Chesterfield. It was done when Blackwell and Dove Court were torn down. While I am not an advocate of a hand out. I do believe circumstances can work against some people. I am certainly not for housing projects but I won’t label everyone in them as lazy, criminals looking for a hand out. Entitlement programs come in all shapes and sizes. So the poor are not the only ones who benefit from them. It is time for Richmond to tear down all the housing projects and place families in mixed income communities. Time for us to stop judging our neighbors and under we are more alike that different.
RTDHonesty- you can’t always blame the schools. Certainly central administration doesn’t always make the best decisions, but ultimately it’s the city council that controls the money going into RPS. If city council doesn’t cough up the dough or put good restrictions on school admin, the school system is always going to be crappy.
I’d also like to see people remember that the school is a product of it’s community and if the community isn’t that supportive or great, it can be really hard for the school to deal with that. The school can’t help it when they have parents who refuse to get involved (do you know how many parents say on a daily basis- “you deal with it”?!), gang activity in the street, extreme poverty, yet the school is expected to remedy all of that. It’s a partnership between home and school AND the community. “Good” people who are living in a “bad” neighborhood should get involved with their PTA and school boards. What peer role models do kids from a poor, struggling family have? None, they go to school with the same kids they live next to and bring the same issues from the streets into the class and back again. There is no escape from it or exposure to someone with a different lifestyle/ socioeconomic status.
City Resident…you’re an idiot.
Post a Comment(Requires free registration)
- Please avoid offensive, vulgar, or hateful language.
- Respect others.
- Use the "Flag Comment" link when necessary.
- See the Terms and Conditions for details.
Advertisement