Affordable, New Apartments for Richmond’s Church Hill Neighborhood

Breaking ground on Church Hill North. Photo by Taylor Dabney; courtesy of The Community Builders.

A new apartment building for seniors and low-income households in Richmond’s East End will open in late 2019, thanks in part to VHDA’s multipronged financial support.

The facility is called Church Hill North after the neighborhood in which it is located. Plans call for 105 apartments to start, with more to be added during a second phase of development. Forty-five of the units are reserved for seniors, and the remaining 60 will be occupied by households with qualifying incomes, including residents of Creighton Court, a nearby public housing complex scheduled for later redevelopment. 

VHDA is backing the $26 million Church Hill North construction in several ways.   

The first involves providing Housing Credits (sometimes called Low-Income Housing Tax Credits, or LIHTC). This U.S. Treasury Department-sponsored program is designed for tenants making at or below 60 percent of an area’s median income. It provides a dollar-for-dollar federal income tax credit to private investors who invest in the construction or rehabilitation of affordable rental housing for low-income tenants.

The second way is via low-interest-rate permanent financing delivered through REACH Virginia, a VHDA program that serves as a catalyst for housing initiatives for seniors, the disabled, the homeless, low-income households and residents of high growth or high cost regions. A substantial portion of VHDA’s net revenues go toward funding REACH Virginia each year.

The Vibrant Communities Initiative, which is a Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development program, is also providing funds for Church Hill North – and VCI’s funding, in turn, originates in part from VHDA. VCI is involved in comprehensive community-based projects, including those with affordable housing and economic-development components.

Church Hill North will open in late 2019.

Speakers at the late-October groundbreaking for Church Hill North included Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney; VHDA Executive Director Susan Dewey; 7th District City Councilwoman Cynthia Newbille; Willie Fobbs, Associate Director for the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development; and Orlando Artze, Interim CEO of Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority.

RRHA and The Community Builders, a nonprofit developer of affordable and mixed-income housing with offices in Washington, D.C., Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati and New York, are codevelopers of Church Hill North.