DATE: Thursday, May 1, 1997                 TAG: 9705010494

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B9   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY MATTHEW DOLAN, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE                        LENGTH:   59 lines

CHESAPEAKE HOUSING PANEL LOPS $2 MILLION OFF REHABILITATION PLAN FEDERAL OFFICIALS ARE BEING SENT A REVISED REQUEST TODAY FOR $6.08 MILLION.

After lopping $2 million off a rejected proposal to rehabilitate a low-income housing complex, the Redevelopment and Housing Authority will send federal officials a revised $6.08 million plan today.

The authority unanimously approved the modified plan for Chesapeake Townhouses in Deep Creek at a special meeting Wednesday.

``It will be a landmark project for the Chesapeake Redevelopment and Housing Authority,'' Chairman Roland L. Thornton said Wednesday night.

Officials at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development rejected the authority's first proposal in March, which would have renovated 100 of 152 dilapidated housing units at a cost of more than $8 million.

Authority staffers told commissioners that HUD's grant formula allows for up to $40,000 per unit for each of the 152 units, or $6.08 million.

``The amount of money they requested in their submitted proposal was very expensive and is beyond the realm of what we can do,'' Charles C. Famuliner, director of multifamily housing at the state HUD office in Richmond, said earlier this week.

Under the new proposal, at least 100 homes will be remodeled and about 52 demolished, as in the old plan. But plans for all new amenities and a new community center building have been scrapped to save money, officials said. Instead, the current center will be restored.

In the 1970s, HUD sponsored an ambitious project in the city to foster homeownership among low-income residents by building the Chesapeake Townhouses. But the owners' cooperative, independent of the city's housing authority, defaulted on its mortgage about seven years ago, and HUD stepped in.

Years of disrepair have left the townhouses in need of new roofs, insulated doors and windows and electrical rewiring.

But this broken-dream neighborhood of masonry and wood-frame townhouses still holds about 70 families between George Washington and Military highways. When reconstruction of the housing complex starts, those residents will have the option of renting rehabilitated units as they are completed.

The authority already owns and operates 467 units of public housing and 152 units of conventional housing, manages 522 housing units and administers 788 rent subsidy certificates and vouchers for low- and moderate-income families.

So the authority, which has risen to become a top-performing agency in the eyes of HUD, thinks it has the right, new approach: Transfer the Chesapeake Townhouses units to the authority's ownership for a nominal sum, rehab a limited number of homes and invigorate the community through education, training and child-care programs, including Head Start.

Due to extensive storm and fire damage, around 52 of the units constructed in 1976 will be demolished. About 36 two-bedroom, 40 three-bedroom and 24 four-bedroom units will be rehabilitated.

New landscaping and lighting will encourage the use of tot lots, basketball courts, picnic shelters, benches and connecting paths, officials said.

CRHA's Economic Development Initiative for residents will include computer training, high school and college-level education, job-training and job-readiness classes.

A decision from HUD on the Chesapeake Townhouses project is expected this summer.

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