Photo: Jack Looney
There have been very few renovations at Westhaven since the Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority constructed 126 apartments in 1964 as a replacement for homes razed in Vinegar Hill. Decades later, funding and planning for a new era is moving forward.
CRHA Executive Director John Sales told City Council on February 18 that design work has been led by more than 30 residents who have been working on the plans for three years and have clear goals.
“Those goals are improving the health and safety of the community, recognizing the memory and history and honoring that, balancing density and livability, cultivating community, and making urban connections,” Sales said.
The new Westhaven will be built in two phases, and Council has agreed to spend $15 million on the first phase, which has a total cost estimate of $81.4 million. This will include construction of a 76-unit senior apartment building, a 64-unit multifamily apartment building, a health clinic, a parking garage, and a dedicated teen center. These new buildings will be between existing units and current and future buildings on West Main Street.
Sales said there is a need to build more units but the place also has to be livable.
“The residents on that site have to have green spaces, adequate trees, playground spaces, adequate parking, addressing stormwater managers as you build more larger buildings,” Sales said.
All of the units will be affordable to households making less than 30 percent of the area median income. CRHA is seeking low-income housing tax credits from Virginia Housing as one of the sources of revenue, which prevents the units from being rented out at market rate. Some of the new apartments will be funded with project-based federal housing vouchers that Sales said would allow CRHA to collect the higher rents anyway.
During his presentation, Sales showed slides of the street network before Westhaven was built, which showed a connection to West Main Street. A major goal of redevelopment is to restore that link and Sales said there will be an accessible walkway to West Main that will pass between Yugo Crestline apartments and a future building to be constructed just to the east.
“That connection that we’re talking about making to Main Street actually lines up perfectly with Cox’s Alley, which was an historic street before the site was developed,” Sales said.
The second phase will include 126 townhouses where the existing units are, but the funding for that project has not yet been worked out. CRHA will come back asking for additional funding from the city.
City Councilor Michael Payne said the project is long overdue and encouraged the public to think about how to integrate the future Westhaven into Charlottesville by providing businesses and resources nearby.
“I know resident services has increased capacity, but residents don’t want to be physically or economically segregated from the broader Charlottesville community,” Payne said.
On Monday, March 2, City Council approved a new memorandum of understanding for its financial obligations as well as a declaration of Westhaven as a revitalization area. Both are intended to augment the application of tax credits.
