The Seattle Housing Authority has received a $10.27 million grant to begin work on a low-income housing building east of Boren at 12th. The building is the start to a planned large-scale redevelopment of the neighborhood approved by the Housing Authority in April.
The grant is a Choice Neighborhoods grant from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the project was competing with several other housing authorities around the country.
Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Shaun Donovan announced today the award of a $10.27 million Choice Neighborhoods implementation grant to the Seattle Housing Authority to be used for redevelopment of Yesler Terrace and the surrounding neighborhood.
“This is a great day for Seattle and the countless families who will benefit from the transformation this funding will bring to the Yesler community,” said Donovan.
The Choice Neighborhoods Initiative looks to transform distressed neighborhoods into sustainable, mixed-income communities by linking affordable housing with quality schools, public transportation, good jobs and safe streets. Seattle Housing expects to use the grant funding to begin the Yesler Terrace redevelopment by building low-income housing on a site east of Boren, and to work with partners to improve outcomes for neighborhood families.
As a “Master Planned Community,” Yesler Terrace’s full plan could take 10-20 years to complete. The plan includes 661 “extremely” low-income units to replace the 561 currently in the neighborhood as well as 290 “very” low-income units and 850 “workforce” units. In addition, the plan calls for 3,199 market-rate units, mostly in high-rise condo and apartment buildings.
Some have raised concerns about what could be lost in the redevelopment. See our feature from earlier this year for more (part 1, part 2).
As SHA explained it earlier, the “Choice Neighborhood” grant had the potential to support neighborhood-serving projects, not just build a new SHA building at 12th and Yesler. It’s good news that SHA will be able to move quickly to develop the 12th/Yesler site so that it does not continue as a vacant lot for years.
But, also included in the SHA grant application were things such as funding to participate in the revival of Washington Performance Hall, street improvements to make neighborhood streets more attractive and better for pedestrians, and more. Am looking forward to learning which of the proposed neighborhood projects will be able to go forward since the grant amount is less than requested.
The grant that was submitted included the things Bill mentioned and more. A lot of it was to go to neighborhood schools.
The amount requested was more than 28 million — the amount awarded was 10.3 million. The proposed work plan is going to need a lot of revision. There should be yet another round of public process — I don’t know if HUD simply cut the funding and left SHA to figure out more-or-less how it gets spent OR if they did some pick and choose, as in “We’ll pay for THIS — but we won’t pay for THAT–“
To be continued — and continued.