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From YouTube: County Board Wrap-Up: Redevelopment & Affordable Housing
Description
ATV's monthly conversation with County Board members on the major issues discussed at April's Board meeting.
A
Welcome
back
to
County
Board
wrap-up,
our
monthly
roundup,
of
important
actions.
The
board
takes
at
its
public
meetings,
we're
taking
a
look
at
the
April
meeting
today
with
County
Board
Chair
Katie
crystal
and
County
Board
member
Eric
guts.
All
now,
let's
jump
right
in
the
board
approved
some
redevelopment
to
the
buckingham
area,
and
this
was
not
without
a
little
bit
of
controversy.
Let's
talk
about
that
one.
A
little
bit
absolutely.
B
So
this
is
a
project
that
will
happen
on
the
site
of
the
former
Red
Cross
building
that
has
been
vacant.
It's
a
project
to
raise
that
old
building,
preserve
the
historic
Garden
Apartments
on
the
site,
but
introduce
a
four-story
multifamily
building
which
will
bring
about
97
units
of
committed,
affordable
housing
to
this
area.
So
you
know,
are
many
of
our
development
projects,
market-rate
or
otherwise,
are
not
without
controversy,
folks
worried
about
the
impacts
to
their
neighborhood.
B
They
worry
about
the
impacts
of
more
people,
often
that
takes
the
form
of
concerns
about
traffic
transportation,
school
capacity
and
so
forth.
So
we
spent
some
time
really
digging
into
those
issues
you
know
gave
staff,
for
example,
some
direction.
We
hope
that
they'll
or
we
have
asked
them
to
please
continue
to
work
with
both
the
developer
and
the
Virginia
Department
of
Transportation,
because
this
is
right
off
route
50
to
ensure
that
some
of
the
feared
impacts
just
circulation
won't
come
to
pass.
No.
A
B
We're
fortunate
to
have
a
number
of
partners
and
Wesley
Housing
Development
Company
is
one
of
them.
Excuse
me,
Wesley,
Housing,
Development
Corporation
is
one
of
them
which
are
nonprofit
developers.
Their
mission
is
to
develop,
committed,
affordable
housing,
and
so
that
means
that
they
are
out
of
the
gate,
ready
to
be
partners
with
us.
It
is
true,
however,
that
one
of
our
major
tools
to
incent
this
kind
of
development
is
by
providing
gap,
financing
which
is
the
affordable
housing,
investment
fund
or
AF.
And
it's
true
that
the
AF
is
seeing
increasing
pressure.
That's
a
great
thing.
B
It
means
there
are
far
more
projects
contending
for
gap,
financing,
great
projects
that
we'd
love
to
support,
but
you
know,
whereas
in
years
past
we
might
see
them
come
in
with
a
request
for
five
or
six
million
dollars.
There
are
now
huge
opportunities
to
acquire
a
large
parcels,
build
more
committed,
affordable
units
requesting
closer
to
say,
20
million
from
our
AF.
So,
even
though
last
year,
for
example,
in
our
budget,
we
reached
record
highs
of
general
fund
contributions
to
the
AF.
We
can't
keep
up.
So
this
project
is
a
great
example.
B
It
really
has
been
kind
of
shaped
and
sculpted
to
be
competitive
for
AF
monies,
but
but
cognizant
of
some
of
those
limitations
it
will
hopefully
bring
in
other
sources
of
funding.
The
AF
is
really
designed
to
leverage
low-income
housing,
tax,
credit,
private
financing
and
other
sources
of
money
in
the
achievement
of
units
like
the
97
that
we'll
see
in
this
building.