During Monday night's meeting of the Alexandria Housing and Redevelopment Authority , the Board of Commissioners approved designation of three scattered sites for the relocation of 48 units of replacement public housing as part of the Samuel Madden Homes (Downtown) Redevelopment Project.
In a joint announcement with Alexandria City Council the Board identified the three possible sites as 423 Reynolds St., 1706 West Braddock Road, and 325 South Whiting St. The two bodies have scheduled two community meetings on the proposed sites to receive citizen input.
The first meeting is scheduled for June 10 at 7 p.m. at the Minnie Howard School, 3801 W. Braddock Rd., to discuss the Braddock Road plans. The second meeting will be held June 12 at 7 p.m. at the Samuel Tucker School, 435 Ferdinand Day Drive, to discuss the other two plans, according to a joint news release.
A COMBINED public hearing will be held June 24 at 6 p.m., at the Ladrey High-Rise, 300 Wythe St., to receive comments from the public on the use of these properties for scattered site housing. Following that meeting, City Council and ARHA will make a joint decision whether to proceed with these sites.
According to the release, the city owns 423 S. Reynolds St., having purchased it in 1998 as a possible site. It is estimated that 18 scattered site units can be built on the site. The Housing Authority and the city each own a portion of the site at 1706 West Braddock Road, and the plan is to build six new townhouse units to add to the 10 existing ones that were built as part of the redevelopment of the Cameron Valley public housing development.
The Whiting Street site is privately owned, and the Housing Authority has entered into discussions with the owner. The proposal for Whiting Street is to construct 24 units in three, eight-plex buildings.
Samuel Madden Homes (Downtown), also known as The Berg, is a 100 unit public housing development owned by ARHA located in the North Old Town section of the city. The entire site is planned for demolition to be replaced by 118 units of private market housing and 52 units of public housing. The 48 scattered units makes up the difference for the original 100 units in The Berg.
ARHA's plan calls for selling The Berg site to a Development Team through a competitive bid process. The Team will transfer the 52 new units to a limited partnership of which ARHA is a member if ARHA is successful in a tax credit application.
ARHA is in the process of receiving redevelopment proposals from two finalist Development Teams. These were selected from a list of five who submitted proposals in February.