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Old Posted Nov 25, 2006, 10:04 PM
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skyfan skyfan is offline
Detroit Love
 
Join Date: Mar 2004
Location: Detroit
Posts: 594
I imagine this will look like Woodbridge Estates this style of deveopment should fit in better in Northwest Detroit.

Hope springs from Herman Gardens

Rebirth of the housing complex includes small retail stores, low-income and market-rate homes.

Christine MacDonald / The Detroit News

DETROIT -- After nearly a decade of missed deadlines, work could start as early as next month on replacing Herman Gardens, once one of the city's largest and most notorious public housing sites.

Today, the 139 acres along the Southfield Freeway on the city's west side resemble a tree-lined cemetery, with little trace of the complex that at its height was home to more than 2,100 families.

The federal government approved the teardown in 1996 as part of an effort called Hope VI to raze the country's worst public housing. The complex was plagued by drug dealers and asbestos contamination, and more than half the World War II-era buildings were boarded up by the mid-1990s. Nearly 500 residents were relocated and many have died waiting for it to be rebuilt.

But, since the federal government took over the troubled Detroit Housing Commission in August 2005, initial work has begun on the $230 million project of low-income and market-rate homes, making it potentially one of the city's largest housing developments. Infrastructure work is expected to begin this winter and building construction is to start in the summer.

Former residents, who miss the family atmosphere of their old Herman Gardens, are eager to see construction. But they're also skeptical.

"This is the seventh or eighth time we've been given dates of groundbreakings," said 66-year-old Ruth Williams, a former resident who organizes the annual Herman Gardens summer reunion. "I'll believe it when I see a shovel in the ground."

Lindsey Reames, the recovery administrator in Detroit for the U.S. Housing and Urban Development Department, understands that doubt. But she says the project is closer than ever to becoming a reality.

The plan starts with a name change: Gardenview Estates. Close to 920 units total will be built: 496 rentals and 424 for-purchase homes, including single-family detached houses, lofts and condos. About half of the rentals and homes will be offered at market rate and the other half will be for low-income families. Prices have not yet been set. Small retail stores also are part of the plan.

While officials are promising quick work, total construction is expected to take up to five years. And HUD is still trying to finalize deals with private developers, who will bear the largest share of the cost at an estimated $126 million. They have a developer for the rentals and will put out bids in January for the home-ownership developer, Reames said. She wouldn't name the rental developer.

Reames said they will build the market rate and low-income units at the same time but said if there's more of a decline in the housing market, they may review whether to complete final phases.

Some work on the site has already started. The new NFL Youth Education Town Boys and Girls Club is about half done.

Reames said they've identified at least 400 people who could move back to the new development, if they still meet certain qualifications.

Evelyn Bradshaw, who lived in Herman Gardens for 30 years, said she's considering moving back. She remembers the good times at the complex, known for its vocal leaders and community activities, including landscaping contests and summer trips for kids to Cedar Point for 50 cents.

"There were a lot of wonderful times we had in Herman Gardens," she said. "A lot of people miss each other."

The road to the new Herman Gardens has been rocky. The project was never able to get traction under the Detroit Housing Commission, which repeatedly was accused of mismanagement.

Throughout the years, the federal government has threatened to take back millions from all three of Detroit's Hope VI projects, including Jeffries Homes and the Villages at Parkside, for lack of progress.

Ted Phillips, who was part of the Detroit Housing Commission team that put together the first proposal to redo Herman Gardens, worries that only about 230 units will be traditional public housing.

That doesn't go far to replace the more than 6,000 public housing units the city has lost since the mid-1990s, he said. The city has close to 4,000 units now, but an estimated third of those are vacant, many because they are so rundown.

"It's not replenishing (but) it's better than nothing," said Phillips, who is now the executive director of United Community Housing Coalition in Detroit.

Reames said there is a plan for an additional 2,000 to 2,500 additional public housing units in the next three to five years.

You can reach Christine MacDonald at (313) 222-2396 or cmacdonald@detnews.com.
http://detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/art...ETRO/611250372
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