ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, October 9, 1996 TAG: 9610090025
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LESLIE TAYLOR STAFF WRITER
A project that would transform Roanoke's Lincoln Terrace public housing development into a community of homes with front porches and white picket fences suffered a funding setback Tuesday.
The Roanoke Redevelopment and Housing Authority had applied for $13 million in grant funding that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development set aside to improve the nation's public housing. The $13 million was to cover renovation, demolition, site improvement and relocation expenses for Lincoln 2000, an ambitious effort to completely revamp the 44-year-old collection of brick buildings that constitutes Lincoln Terrace.
HUD announced Tuesday that the housing authority will receive only $1 million. That money can be used only to help families who must relocate while work is under way.
"I would say the best possible scenario is not going to occur now," said David Baldwin, the housing authority's director of housing. Had the housing authority received the full $13 million, "we would have been certain to be able to proceed with some construction by next summer," he said. "Now that's less certain."
HUD announced Tuesday that it had awarded $716 million in grants to 74 communities, including Roanoke, to improve the condition of the nation's public housing. Almost $477 million will be used to demolish some of the nation's worst public housing, improve existing public housing and build new public housing. Another $239 million in federal Section 8 housing subsidy funds will provide two years of rental assistance in the private rental market for 15,000 families who have been displaced temporarily by demolition or renovation projects.
The Roanoke housing authority received funding from the latter category - $1 million in rental assistance for 126 Lincoln Terrace families who will have to move during the first phase of the Lincoln 2000 project.
"We received applications for more funds than we have available, which often happens," said David Egner, a HUD spokesman. "A panel of civil servants looked at all the applications and evaluated them. A lot of housing authorities received less than they asked for, some substantially less. Some didn't receive anything at all."
Last month, the Roanoke housing authority unveiled a plan to give Lincoln Terrace a complete overhaul by combining physical renovation with efforts to help families move from public assistance to self-sufficiency.
The project could cost as much as $20 million.
Baldwin said the housing authority will seek other ways to fund the project and possibly submit another application for HUD funding. The new federal budget sets aside another $550 million for public housing grants that will be awarded in May.
The housing authority has about $4 million in federal modernization funding for Lincoln Terrace already in place, Baldwin said.
"We've also been talking to some potential sources for low-income tax credits," he said. "We've also become aware of some state low-interest loan programs through the Virginia Housing Development Authority that could assist in the project."
The Lincoln 2000 project probably will focus now on the first of its three phases, provided the housing authority can find another $4 million in funding, Baldwin said.
In phase one, 10 buildings will be demolished, 26 buildings renovated and 10 new buildings constructed. Families will have to move - either into vacant units in Lincoln Terrace or into apartments or homes subsidized through the Section 8 program.
The development has 300 units - 282 of them occupied. The Lincoln 2000 project proposes reducing the 300 to 222, including 48 new single-family and duplex units.
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