Savannah’s affordable housing to get facelift
By Amy Condon
Earlier this month, the Georgia Department of Community Affairs awarded the City of Savannah more than $15 million in tax credits to revitalize two affordable housing developments.
Sustainable Fellwood, located west of Savannah’s Historic District on Bay Street, will receive more than $7 million in tax credits. The credits will be used to construct up to 100 units of affordable senior housing as part of a 27-acre mixed-use development that is already underway.
CHSA Development, Inc., a non-profit housing corporation, will redevelop Strathmore Estates on the city’s east side into Savannah Gardens. The $8 million in tax credits awarded by the state will initiate Phase I of the mixed-income complex of multi- and single-family homes, which will include 115 affordable rental units.
Tax credits are public finance mechanisms sold on the open market to generate dollars for capital projects, such as low-income housing and infrastructure improvements.
Both redevelopment projects represent the culmination of extensive community visioning processes that assessed existing and surrounding neighbors’ hopes for improved living conditions as well as their concerns about gentrification.
Green Building
Sustainable Fellwood is a project of the Housing Authority of Savannah, a public agency that is the local arm of the Federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). The original development was Savannah’s first public housing project, constructed in the 1940s as housing for defense contractors and returning veterans.
The new $50 million mixed-use development rising in its place will offer 220 mixed-income multi-family housing units, 100 senior housing units, 13 single-family homes and retail/commercial/business space.
Phase I of the project already is completed. Phase II is under construction. The recent tax credits, the third in a series awarded by the state for this project, will initiate Phase III.
Sustainable Fellwood is being built by Mark Melaver, Inc. according to the Smart Growth Network’s principles for livable communities and will be Georgia’s first public housing rated by the U.S. Green Building Council for LEED for Neighborhood Development certification.
These measures seek to reduce utility costs to improve affordability for renters and owners as well as to increase maintenance and upkeep of the property. To learn more check out their Web site.
Community Participation
After a year and a half of a community participation process led by the city and including residents and neighbors, Strathmore Estates has been re-envisioned as Savannah Gardens: a community of single-family residences, multi-family apartments and town homes with a central park creating an east-west spine that links it to surrounding neighborhoods. Small public squares will reflect the character of downtown.
Originally built in 1943 as public housing for World War II ship builders, the 750 apartment homes were intended for temporary use. However, as each property passed from one owner to another, falling into disrepair, it became a part of the city’s public housing inventory.
The Savannah Chatham Metropolitan Police Department identified Strathmore Estates as the primary source of criminal activity east of the Truman Parkway.
According to Martin Fretty, director of the city’s Department of Housing, Strathmore Estates “had become a place of last resort, overwhelming the residents who’d live there, some for 30 or 40 years.”
More than 370 units were razed in the 1990s to make way for the new Savannah High School. Only 140 units are occupied, and more than 200 sit boarded up behind chain-link fencing.
The city brought in the non-profit Mercy Housing, LLC, to manage the property and cull residents delinquent on rents or that could not pass background checks. Approximately 150 residents remain, and will have the opportunity to rent or buy in the redeveloped community.
The tax credits will initiate Phase I demolition and development. The total three-phase project of 400 to 450 apartments and 120 detached single-family homes will take four years to complete. More about this project, including plans and renderings, is available online.
This project has ties to SCAD. Under the direction of Scott Boylston, professor of graphic arts and sustainable design, SCAD students and community volunteers launched the Emergent Structures Project.
The ES Project reclaims salvaged materials from the Strathmore Estates demolition for adaptive reuse in other projects, such as furniture, urban gardens and found art. A gallery show and symposium will be held in the future to highlight the resulting works as well as to develop best practices for harvesting materials. To get involved, contact Boylston at sboylsto@scad.edu.
Success Story
The trend in affordable housing development across the country is to integrate subsidized housing with market rate rental and single-family homes, a process that has met with success in other communities such as Charleston, S.C., and Chicago, Ill.
Savannah has its own success story.
The Ashley Midtown project, east of downtown near the Truman Parkway between Henry and Wheaton streets, was the first mixed-use redevelopment of public housing in the city utilizing Hope VI funds from the Federal Department of Housing and Urban Redevelopment (HUD). The development includes 167 apartments and 19 town homes. Twelve single-family homes will come online as buyers secure financing.
For the first time in years, says Earline Davis, director of the Housing Authority of Savannah, banks now have comparables for this area, which spurs reinvestment, home sales, refinancing and building refurbishment.
According to Bret Bell, director of public information for the City of Savannah, the police have reported a marked decrease in crime in Ashley Midtown, which bodes well for future efforts.
“We are addressing affordable housing needs while revitalizing neighborhoods,” Bell said.
Davis says that stimulus funding from the Obama administration will go toward demolition of and resident relocation at Hitch Village, between President and Wheaton streets on East Broad. The Francis Bartow complex, on the city’s west side, will also benefit from stimulus funds for necessary improvements to the 60-year-old former defense housing.
To learn more about the city’s neighborhood redevelopment plans, check out their Web site. To learn more about affordable housing, go to the Housing Authority of Savannah’s Web site.
