An affordable housing complex located near Albemarle High School is aging, and local nonprofit Piedmont Housing Alliance is taking over the complex to renovate it.
The Albemarle County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously on Wednesday to support PHA preserving and rehabilitating the Park’s Edge Apartments with up to $325,000.
“It really is a great complex. It’s getting old like a lot of [affordable housing],” said Supervisors Diantha McKeel, who said in a previous meeting that she has been impressed by how satisfied residents seem to be with the management at Park’s Edge.
PHA is purchasing Park’s Edge from another local nonprofit, the Albemarle Housing Improvement Program. AHIP became involved in the property in 1998 and finished renovating the apartments in 2004. However, AHIP has since decided to move away from housing development and management to focus on rehabilitation.
“There [are] other organizations, both nonprofit and for-profit, doing housing development … but there [is] no one else doing rehab and repair, and that is where the need is. We have 296 households on the list for Albemarle right now for critical home repairs,” said Jennifer Jacobs, executive director of AHIP.
Families must make less than 60 percent of area median income, or $51,180 a year, to live in one of the 96 Park’s Edge apartments. Less than 10 percent of the residents are seniors.
The county will allocate up to $325,000 from their housing fund to the project, after PHA determines their final financial need. The Board of Supervisors established the housing fund this year to support one-time housing costs. The remainder of the $600,000 fund is supporting Habitat for Humanity as the nonprofit redevelops the Southwood Mobile Home Park.
The board’s early commitment helps PHA seek a grant from the Virginia Housing Development Authority’s Resources Enabling Affordable Community Housing program.
“In order for a project to receive REACH funds, there’s an expectation that local funding is also going into the project,” said Ron White, chief of housing for Albemarle County. “There’s a lot more work to be done [like engineering studies and construction estimates] … but until PHA has an idea that they can get the necessary funding to purchase and rehab, those things aren’t going to happen.”
PHA also plans to seek federal low-income housing tax credits to support the project. White said that the project met the qualifications to compete for the federal tax credits, which would decrease taxes for those investing in the redevelopment.
