Plans to build an affordable housing complex for seniors in west Charlotte are moving forward on land purchased this week by the West Side Community Land Trust.
The 4.5 acre parcel on West Boulevard off Tyvola Road was purchased by the land trust on May 31 for $1,125,000, according to the organization's executive director, Charis Blackmon.
Blackmon said the trust will rent the apartments to seniors 55 and older who make between 30-80% of the area's median income. Rents will range from $474 to $1,500 a month.
The development will be named the Historic Nathanial Carr Senior Community in honor of local African American developer Nathanial Carr, who with his wife, Lizzie, created the Carr Heights neighborhood on West Boulevard for Black buyers in 1924.
Carr also purchased and owned the land on which the new apartments will be built, Blackmon said.
The land trust was able to purchase the land with funding from The Rockefeller Foundation, Fifth-Third Bank, Bank of America, the city of Charlotte's Housing Trust Fund, and the privately-funded Charlotte Housing Opportunity Investment Fund.
The community land trust is partnering with Georgia-based developer The Paces Foundation to construct the apartments. Blackmon said they expected to break ground on the project in September and finish construction in fall 2023.
"I’m hoping that it will have a major impact with seniors that are currently at risk of displacement who may not be able to age in place in the communities that they’ve called home for so long," Blackmon said.
This will be the land trust's largest project to date. The land trust has nine other affordable units in its portfolio, Blackmon said, including a renovated home nicknamed the"Tuck House" in Enderly Park.
In addition, the land trust is renovating two historic shotgun houses that were moved from uptown to the Lakeview neighborhood, where they will be accessory dwellings to two new homes under construction on land owned by the trust, Blackmon said.
The land trust has also acquired three homes from homeowners planning to build new homes on their properties. The donated home would otherwise have been demolished. Blackmon said the trust had also acquired another donated home, in addition to the land on which it sat, and funds for the home's renovation.
