RICHMOND, Va. — As developers add some higher-priced options to the housing stock available in North Church Hill, an effort remains underway to ensure that lower-income residents can remain in the neighborhood.
A coalition of city agencies and nonprofits is wrapping up one project and moving forward with others that are adding dozens of new homes and renovating existing ones in North Church Hill and other Richmond neighborhoods.
The group, which includes the Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority, Better Housing Coalition and Project:Homes, among others, is nearing completion on the Church Hill Model Block project. It has seen the construction of 38 homes in and around a full block, bordered by S and T streets and North 26th and 27th streets.
The groups are also seeking nearly $2 million in Community Development Block Grant funds – awarded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and distributed through the city’s Economic and Community Development Department – for that project and others in North Jackson Ward, South Barton Heights, Carver and other older neighborhoods.
Image courtesy of Better Housing Coalition.
About $180,000 of that money would fund another five homes for the Church Hill Model Block, to be built by Project:Homes at a total project cost of $2.28 million.
Catina Wright, who sells homes for Better Housing through Icon Realty Group, a Re/Max Commonwealth affiliate, said the homes ensure that a mix of incomes are represented in a neighborhood that has seen heightened interest from private developers.
She noted higher-priced homes under construction in the area, including seven homes to be priced around $400,000 a few blocks away.
“We never really want to lose sight of mixed-income communities,” she said. “Without programs like this, your average buyers – median-income – wouldn’t be able to buy, especially in historic districts.”
David Herring, Better Housing’s director of single family development, said the projects also add value to stretches of older neighborhoods that may have been depressed by rundown homes or vacant lots.
“We go into areas that previously had little value in the private sector and we establish value,” Herring said.
Homes built are assessed for their sales price, which have ranged in North Church Hill from $165,000 to $170,000. That helps establish comparables for the rest of a neighborhood. The Church Hill Model Block homes, for example, fill lots that were vacant or replace older homes that were razed due to their condition.
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