Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, December 12, 1993 TAG: 9312120021
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOEL TURNER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
And that's fine with Willis "Wick" Anderson, the new chairman of the Roanoke Redevelopment and Housing Authority.
Anderson agrees with the national trend away from large public housing complexes - such as Lincoln Terrace and Lansdowne Park in Roanoke - toward smaller developments and renovation of existing housing for low-income people.
"I know there are housing needs which have not been met. But I don't think the large complexes are the answer," he said in an interview this week.
The authority has a waiting list of 249 applicants for public housing.
Large projects have fallen out of favor with federal funding agencies, said Dan Pollock, the city's housing development coordinator.
"The emphasis now is on renovating existing housing within a neighborhood rather than creating new communities of public housing," Pollock said.
But Ted Edlich, executive director of Total Action Against Poverty, said he's not sure Roanoke can meet the housing needs of low-income people "by renovating a few houses here and there."
"I think the large complexes have gotten a bad image because of drug dealing and crime," Edlich said. "It's the politically correct thing to say now that large complexes are not the way to meet housing needs."
But he said Roanoke's community-oriented policing effort has reduced crime in Lincoln Terrace and Lansdowne Park, each of which has 300 units.
"I don't think we should rule out large complexes," Edlich said. Before the growth in drug dealing and crime, he said, the large public housing communities were not a bad place to live.
Without federal funds, however, there is little chance the city will build any large new complexes.
Anderson said the authority should focus on housing programs that provide federal money for the rehabilitation of single-family houses, apartments and smaller developments for low-income people.
He also supports programs that provide federal money to subsidize the rents of low-income people living in privately owned housing.
Roanoke has 10 public housing complexes with a total of 1,500 units.
Neva Smith, executive director of the housing authority, said the latest trend in public housing is to build complexes with 125 or fewer units.
Smith said there is little federal money available for new public housing. Most of the money is earmarked for specialized groups such as the homeless and mentally ill.
Anderson pointed out that Roanoke has provided all of the public housing in the Roanoke Valley. The city has more than met its responsibility, he said.
"The availability of land in the city for more housing is limited. We want to encourage that it be used for privately owned housing," he said.
Roanoke officials say Salem and Roanoke County need to share the responsibility for providing public housing.
The more public housing the city builds, the more people will move into the city to seek it, Anderson said.
Anderson, a former mayor of Roanoke and member of the House of Delegates, has succeeded Rob Glenn as head of the authority's board of commissioners.
Anderson wants the authority to do whatever it can to encourage the development of downtown and middle-income housing.
The agency also needs to keep working with police and residents to curb crime in the public housing developments, he said.
Anderson said he believes the authority will continue to remain a major player in redevelopment projects such as new office buildings downtown.
He supports the board's recent decision to investigate the feasibility of constructing a building in the Henry Street area which could include administrative offices for the agency.
Smith said earlier that an anchor building would help stimulate redevelopment in Henry Street, once the center for black restaurants, hotels and nightclubs.
The authority's offices are located in the Lansdowne Park housing complex at 2624 Salem Turnpike N.W.
by CNB