RECENT COMMENTS
North Church Hill Choice Neighborhoods planning process continues
The 2nd meeting of the ongoing North Church Hill Choice Neighborhoods process took place last Wednesday at Woodville Elementary School. About 100 people turned out for a 90-minute information session.
Zachary Reid wrote about the meeting for the Times Dispatch, and describes the main issue behind the push for redevelopment and a key to making this work:
“It’s almost the tale of two cities,” Mayor Dwight C. Jones said recently in his office in City Hall. “You see all this excitement in downtown Richmond, but just a few miles away you have concentrated poverty to levels that are just unacceptable. Something has to be done.”
[…]
That slice of the East End offers something developers will need, though: access to a large piece of land on which to begin.
The campus of Armstrong High, vacant since its program was merged into the Kennedy High building in 2004, is a likely spot for the first homes. Building there would mean construction could begin before demolition at the nearby Creighton Court, so no one would be displaced.
It would also open the possibility for what officials see as a key component to the whole plan: attracting people willing to pay market rate for homes alongside others that are subsidized.
The planning process is expected to last 12-18 months, and to produce a document outlining a vision of how the Church Hill North and Creighton Court communities can be transformed into thriving, healthy communities. 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 have been 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.
A draft copy of the Preliminary Existing Conditions Analysis was distributed at the meeting, which is included below:
Thanks for posting. This absolutely drives me crazy! If you know, you know why. The city’s ignorance at its highest! So Church Hill North has migrated farther north? The city needs to address what’s really there as well. Call the whole area that if you want, but enlighten the public about where they actually live too. Telling them they live in a made-up blanket name is not good enough and in typical backwards Richmond fashion. People could find pride in their actual neighborhoods if they knew their names and history. I hate I can’t make these meetings. What happened to DPZ’s plan? I need someone to hear me!
Cadeho, I couldn’t agree more. MAYOR JONES, CHANGE THE NAME OF THIS PROJECT!
I was kind of back and forth on this – it’s generally called the Fairfield area, right? It some ways it does make sense to keep using the terms people know. However, Church Hill has a lot of cachet right now, so using “Church Hill” in the rebranded name could help spur investment and interest. If the goal is to also start something new, it makes sense to have a new name as well.
Gretta, so we are going to rename an area that isn’t Church Hill, Church Hill North so people feel better about living in the the blighted area the Mayor is trying to develop? The obvious consequence of that is the real Church Hill area is then diluted and forever associated with the blighted area that is not in fact Church Hill. If the grand experiment does not work, then the real Church Hill is left holding the bag with its name being confused with the most poverty stricken and blighted area in all of Central Virginia. Bad idea. Let’s just call each neighborhood by its historical name rather than playing shell games.
Everything within the 64 arc, Fairfield, Fairmount, Creighton, Shed Town, Union Hill, Mosby, St. Johns, Chimborazo, Oakwood, etc… all of that has been called “Church Hill” by old timers. For example, few people who moved to Union Hill in the 1950s ever heard that name on a daily basis until historians started to use it again (even though it is all over Mary Wingfield Scott’s books). It might be correct to call a specific area close to Broad Street Church Hill, but if you are telling someone who has lived in the high letter streets since 1955 that they don’t live in Church Hill, they will look at you funny. They aren’t rebranding up there, the horse left the barn on colloquial neighborhood names a long time ago.
Next Friend, then it’s time to teach them. Those who look at their deeds if they own their properties don’t see “Church Hill,” they see “Woodville,” “Fairmount Park,” “Peter Paul,” Hechler’s Plan” etc. Ignorance ignores. Sure, the whole area is known as Church Hill just as Woodlake, Bon Air, Glen Allen, Sanston, and Varina are names of large areas made up of individual neighborhoods and subdivisions. You will also see signs at entry of whatever subdivision if you go to those areas. The suburbanites know where they live yet those in the city today are kept ignorant because no one is willing to bring it to light. Instead, the city seems to pride itself on hiding the real names of its subdivisions and replacing them with either made up names no one ever used, “Barton Heights Southern Tip” for example, or erroneously naming a place after another existing place in another location, East View for example. Would it be right to name a section of town Lalaland out of the blue when it already had an identity? Then if Lalaland caught on, would it be right to erase the name and history of that particular area? If so, every plat, every deed, every map should be destroyed with that original name in favor of Lalaland.
A glimpse of Creighton’s future?
http://www.timesdispatch.com/local/city-of-richmond/a-glimpse-of-creighton-s-future/article_63b306da-0798-51f1-926f-4192b7c0a403.html
These plans sound great on the surface but I’m a big skeptic. Everybody loves the idea of mixed income and seems to agree it’s how we cure the ills of the projects, myself included. What’s missing is a good plan to bring the middle class part of that mix in.
What’s the draw here? Live in suburbia style neighborhoods? People can do that in Hanover WITH good schools and lower taxes and without the multi-hundred thousand dollar bet that their neighborhood will turn out right.
We’ve started to achieve a nice mix in the Church Hill area naturally with the draw being good businesses and historic home stock. Maybe the answer is businesses for this proposed neighborhood too?
I don’t claim to know but I’m a bit leery of the city throwing millions after this fairy tale until we can get a good answer as to why any sane middle class family would be moving in. Otherwise this is just more money invested in the city’s least successful venture.
Just spitballing here…
What about putting the ballpark development in there? No flood issues, good (but not great) interstate access, avoids the slavery history (and covers up some other shameful history), it would be cheaper since Richmond already owns the land (and it’s super worthless land right now) and, most importantly, it gives a draw to the neighborhood.
I’m sure I’m probably missing some factors but it feels like it could work. If not, then we’ve only made one big bet instead of two.
Richmond’s web site already recognizes Church Hill North as one of its city Old and Historic Districts. Its boundaries and name are on the city’s site. It seems jones isn’t too familiar with Richmond after all.
Church Hill North? Why call it that when it’s NOT Church Hill North? Call it what it is…Creighton or Fairfield. Church Hill has worked long and hard to accomplish what exists today…why confuse everyone? If one were to live in Brandermill, they wouldn’t consider it Wood Lake.
Right on #4.
I have the solution, let’s rename the project Windor Farms East! I bet no one will object and the realtors won’t even realize they are in Fairfield Court. Then we just snap our fingers, sprinkle magic ferry dust, click our ruby slippers three times, and poverty in the East End is solved! LOL
Anxieties Aired About Public Housing Plans
http://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/anxieties-aired-about-public-housing-plans/Content?oid=1975820
They’re worried about a “mass eviction”? What about the mass evictions for the waste of public funds that are the projects? What about the people whose houses were newly built or those families who had just paid for that would be taken to build those projects? How about those land owners who were not fairly compensated for their land?
These people do not know history and that these “neighborhoods” were not built to be permanent places to live. Why would you want to cling to a cinder block cell for the rest of your life? Why not strive for better? Why not try to end that cycle?
I know many who used them for what their original purpose was. They were determined to pull themselves up and get out because their being there was to be temporary, not a life-sentence. Those who need the help deserve better places to live than these aging (over 50 years old now) concrete cages.
Highland Grove is a good example for Whitcomb, Creighton, Mosby North, and Mosby Central. The others, Mosby South (Fairmount), Fairfield (Woodville), and Gilpin (Jackson Ward/DuVal’s Addition) should return to single family homes and original neighborhood names. The days of this failed project are nearing their end. Some need to think about the big picture and consider what has occurred and while they’re at it, see that there is a way out and that there is something better.