RECENT COMMENTS
Planning under way for redevelopment of Creighton and Whitcomb
The theme of the evening was transformation and community engagement for the standing-room-only crowd of around 200 people at Woodville Elementary last night. A bevy of city officials including Mayor Dwight Jones, the RRHA’s Adrienne Goolsby, 6th and 7th Council Representatives Ellen Robertson and Cynthia Newbille, and 7th District Schoolboard Representative Don Coleman were on hand to be a part the Planning Kickoff Meeting to begin the comprehensive effort designed to transform the Church Hill North and Creighton Court communities.
The planning process is expected to last 12-18 months, and to produce a document outlining a vision of how a portion of the East East might be transformed. According to the map on the flyer, the planning area includes the northern edge of Church Hill North, Fairmount, Woodville, and the Creighton Court area, though in conversation Fairfield Court, Mosby Court, and the Whitcomb area were all included as well.
At the end of the planning process, the project should then be competitive towards winning a $30,000,000 HUD-funded Choice Neighborhoods implementation grant to put the plan to reality. As The Community Builders’ Rob Fossi said, the process “is intended to lead to real development”.
Zachary Reid of of the Times-Dispatch offers this description of the project:
The idea is to begin by replacing the 503-unit Creighton Court housing complex – the second largest of RRHA’s six court-style developments — with a mix of housing types.
As that happens, similar redevelopment of the nearby Whitcomb Court, a 491-unit project, is also scheduled, with an overall goal of bringing into the projects privately owned homes and businesses in that part of town.
The goal of the process goes well beyond the physical rehabilitation of the area. At its root is the alleviation of poverty through the improvement of the quality life for all residents in the area through the creation of mixed-income communities. Councilwoman Newbille stated directly that the plan will include 1-for-1 replacement for public housing units and a new grocery store.
The Community Builders, a Boston-based non-profit development corporation, will be guiding the process. TCB brings almost 30 years experience in neighborhood revitalization projects, and manages a large number of properties. They presented Oakwood Shores in Chicago, Dutch Point in Connecticut, and Broadcreek Renaissance in Norfolk as examples of their redevelopment portfolio.
Broadcreek Renaissance in Norfolk
This is not the first time that there has a push to redevelop the struggling areas of the East End. In the late 1960s, Richmond received grants through the Model Cities Program to make a plan to help bring middle-income home owners back into parts of Church Hill. What we got instead was the Chimbo Mart and a broom factory. In late 2006, Councilwoman McQuinn let us believe that there would be a grocery store at 25th and Nine Mile by 2009. In 2010, the East End Transformation Charrette engaged the community in hoping for big change. What we got instead was a new sidewalk and some trees for S Street.
Juanita Buster of the City’s Department of Economic and Community Development addressed potential “planning fatigue”, saying that this can be different and there is a push to get some development going even during the planning process. There is a model block of new houses already underway, for example, in the 1300 blocks of 26th and 27th Streets. In addition, the city is looking to put in place an abbreviated streetscape plan for parts of Nine Mile Road.
I find it concerning that the city intends to rebrand the East End housing projects as “Church Hill North” in conjunction with a conversion/redevelopment to mixed income (per the Richmond Times-Dispatch article). Does that mean all of the East End projects once converted to mixed income are going to be named and forever linked with Church Hill, or is that just for Creighton and Whitcomb Court? Last I checked Creighton and Whitcomb Court were not in Church Hill.
Regardless, I am glad to see the mixed income model attempt to fix these troubled developments, just not excited about the name.
Time for Richmond to rid itself of all public housing projects.
As long as the neighborhoods remain concentrated bastions of poverty, nothing’s going to improve. Calling it “mixed income” doesn’t make it so. How many middle class families would be willing to move into the middle of one of Richmond’s existing projects today, even if they were offered free housing? This just sounds like a reshuffling of the same deck.
Let’s find ways to give the folks in the projects an opportunity to move to a decent neighborhood instead of being trapped in a hellhole. Get Richmond out of the landlord business and use the money for vouchers. Maybe in things might actually improve then and we won’t be having this same conversation in ten years.
Just bulldoze they whole area.
I have a question, because the plans seem vague when it comes to the Whitcomb court communities. I know that the Creighton court community is supposed to be torn down and replaced, but what is supposed to happen with the Whitcomb community? I’m asking this because the article seems vague and doesn’t give any details to what is going to happen with Whitcomb.
This won’t work unless all the housing projects in the immediate area are leveled. You won’t get people with a choice/money to move in if the it is done piecemeal.
Just leveling the projects alone make the area north of broad exponentially more appealing to a lot more folks.
What has the city done over the years to convince itself that it has any business being in the property management / poverty solving industry? I don’t think it’s possible to have a worse track record than Richmond has in these areas unless success is defined purely by money spent.
Bulldoze, sell the land and let section 8 cover the housing safety net. Stop pissing away time and money on consultants to investigate other options that are beyond your ability to deliver.
What about Mosby? particularly the area right after you cross from downtown Via Leigh street? It seems to me that that eyesore prevents more development east from Church Hill. There are a lot of drivers that commute through there. Seeing improvements from the main through ways would go a long way in changing people’s perceptions of the area. Plus it is a smaller area than the others, it would make a much better starting place.
I need to be involved but I can’t. I wonder who I could speak to about my ideas?