Responding to concerns raised by local residents, Alexandria is adding nearly 100 more units of affordable housing to its redevelopment plans for the Beauregard neighborhood, adding $34 million to the price tag of the long-term revitalization effort. The city and private developers who have signed on to the Beauregard project are now pledging to devote $114 million for affordable housing in the area, as opposed to the $80 million they initially promised. Alexandria alone is contributing nearly $21 million more to the plan than it originally indicated, after the city decided to set aside more funds from real estate taxes for the redevelopment effort.
The city will also conduct a survey of current residents on housing needs in the area.
“We know from the Census, we know from school lunch program info that there are low-income people in the area, but just so we have a better handle on who’s there, we’ll co-sponsor a survey of the residents who will be impacted,” said Helen McIlvaine, Alexandria’s deputy director of housing. “We want to make sure we get the income targeting right.”
Under the plan, residents earning less than about $43,000 per year would qualify for the affordable housing units, McIlvaine said, though some residents making as much $80,000 a year also could qualify.
The changes to the Beauregard plan — a sweeping redevelopment plan for an already densely developed Alexandria neighborhood — are a result of months of community meetings in which residents weighed in on everything from open space to traffic patterns to affordable housing. The new, revised plan is now available for public comment.
Other changes implemented by city planners include reducing proposed building heights by 10 feet, retaining a number of existing apartment buildings and adding open space in the area.
“This is an evolution, and I think the community provided a lot of great comments,” said Jeff Farner, the deputy director of the city’s department of planning and zoning. “A lot of the issues that we’ve heard from the community hopefully are addressed from within the revised plan.”
The city will hold a public meeting on the revised plan April 9 at 7 p.m. Copies of the revised plan are available at alexandriava.gov.
