City allocates $150,000 to affordable housing

The first chunk of this year’s Charlottesville’s Hou-sing Fund now has a place to live.

Officials allocated $150,000 from the $1.4 million fund — used to help bolster and create affordable housing in the city — to aid in the Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority’s public housing redevelopment process and to potentially create a city housing planner position.

The housing authority will use $100,000 to assist the city’s master planning for public housing redevelopment. Officials say that much of the public housing in Charlottesville — spread over 11 sites and 376 units — needs major repairs because of deteriorating conditions.

“The revitalization of public housing, there’s so much potential there in terms of improving the quality of life for our public housing residents, in terms of expanding the supply of affordable housing,” said Mayor Dave Norris, chairman of Charlottesville’s Redevelop-ment Committee and one of the city’s biggest proponents of increasing its affordable housing stock. Norris was one of four councilors to vote for the entire funding allocation during the City Council’s meeting Monday.

Redevelopment funds will be used for a wide range of tasks, including architectural and design work, feasibility studies and examining building conditions, Norris said. Within the $100,000 being given to the housing authority, $25,000 will be designated for the Public Housing Association of Residents to involve the sites’ residents as redevelopment progresses.

“This cannot be a top-down process, it can’t be seen as something that’s being done to the residents,” Norris said, adding, “They have the most to gain and the most to lose from this process.”

The remaining $50,000 of the $150,000 allocation will be used to create a housing planner position, designed to help manage the city’s housing fund, look for affordable housing funding sources and work with local developers and nonprofits to provide affordable units. Funding will also be pulled from the city’s Community Development Block Grant funds to finance the position.

Neighborhood Develop-ment Services Director Jim Tolbert said the planner would also assist in gathering information on the location of affordable units in the city — something local officials have had a tough time determining.

“They would maintain all the statistical data that we would need,” Tolbert said.

Though the money has been set aside, the position will not be filled before Jan. 1 and until the next fiscal year’s budget is further scrutinized in light of the bleak economic conditions. Councilor Satyendra Huja, the sole councilor to vote against the funding resolution, said he did not think it was financially prudent to allocate funds for a new staff position.

“In the coming year it may be even harder to maintain the current staff that we have,” Huja said. “We probably could use a housing planner, but again, things are tight.”

Huja said he hoped existing staff would be able to shoulder some of the would-be planner’s responsibilities. Pending the budget review, Tolbert said he hopes to soon hire a part-time intern to assist the department in data collection and other tasks.

“We’d like to start right now,” he said.