The Wilmington Housing Authority is searching for a development partner capable of razing the existing Hillcrest community and replacing it with one that is “vibrant” and mixed-income. The timeline of the project is unknown. (Port City Daily photo/Alexandria Sands)
WILMINGTON –– When Hillcrest is ultimately razed to the ground, residents who are moved elsewhere by the Wilmington Housing Authority (WHA) will be expected to pay the same amount each month in rent, calculated as an affordable percentage of earned income.
If and when the renter migrates back to Hillcrest, once it’s redeveloped into a new community, they’d still be charged that income-based rate. At the minimum, a tenant can pay just $50 a month.
The housing authority began advertising for a development partner in early May. The deadline for developers to submit responses is July 15.
This isn t the first time the housing authority has looked to raze Hillcrest s existing units. In 2011, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development awarded the Wilmington Housing Authority a $250,000 planning grant to help them apply for a HUD Choice Neighborhoods to tear down and rebuild Hillcrest, according to past StarNews reporting.
The housing authority ultimately did not receive the grant needed to raze and rebuild, but now they re trying again.
Tentative plans for the site go beyond public housing. The housing authority wants to see new units that accommodate a range of income levels - including affordable and market rate units - along with commercial development, Redmon said.
The Wilmington Housing Authority is aiming to redevelop Hillcrest, an 80-year-old development that was supposed to only exist temporarily for war efforts. (Port City Daily photo/Alexandria Sands)
WILMINGTON ââ Between 13th and 16th on Dawson Street, garments swing on clothes lines in front of dull, masonry one-story buildings. The dwellings, originally built with the intention to later tear down, house more than 200 impoverished Wilmington families. Spread out amongst 26 acres, the public housing structures decay as investors pour millions into revitalizing and enriching the surrounding land.
Hillcrest was built as temporary housing to support the efforts of the Second World War. Itâs now 80 years old and crumbling. Meanwhile, City of Wilmington and New Hanover County leaders frantically search for a solution to the areaâs lack of affordable housing as the workforce population skyrockets. The answer could be dense housing ââ apartments and townhomes â
View Comments Pages of history features excerpts from The News Journal archives including the Wilmington Morning News and the Evening Journal.
June 6, 1968, from the Evening Journal
Robert Kennedy is dead; Mourning proclaimed by Johnson
Sen. Robert F. Kennedy died today, felled like his brother by an assassin’s bullet.
He never regained consciousness, never showed signs of recovery after a burst of revolver fire sent a bullet into his brain as he stood at the pinnacle of his own campaign for the White House.
With his pregnant wife, Ethel, at his bedside, the New York senator, 42, died at 1:44 a.m., PDT, little more than 25 hours after the assault at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. A son, Joseph, 15, was also there.
A $50 million housing bond may be a big step in addressing housing affordability but could zoning code changes make just as big of an impact? Wilmington-area developers seem to think so. Now it's up to officials to take action.