In recent years, Charlottesville City Council has increased capital funding for the Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority to allow for the purchase of more property and to help finance renovations and new construction.
The CRHA Board of Commissioners and the City Council got together for their annual meeting on August 7. City Manager Sam Sanders said he set up the meeting so that Councilors could hear directly from the body they appoint to oversee the work of the CRHA. This particular meeting was a chance for Deputy City Manager James Freas to explain changes in the city’s housing staff.
“He’s going to walk you through an update of what the recent efforts have been to just check in on the relationship, make sure that we identify things that we’re all working on together and give the council an opportunity to ask any questions as well,” Sanders said.
Resources for this story:
- City of Charlottesville and Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority Partnership Report
- Development Report for Joint Meeting
Freas said affordable housing is a top priority for the City of Charlottesville and the city has backed it up with investments.
“To that end, CRHA is arguably our most important partner in that work,” Freas said. “ CRHA controls more than 400 units. They administer our CSRAP program, the Charlottesville Supplemental Rental Assistance Program.”
The latter is a pool of $900,000 given to CRHA each year to fund additional housing vouchers. This dates back to authorization by City Council in October 2017.
“I guess we’re a couple years shy of the 10 year anniversary of that,” Freas said. “And it’s a good time for us to revisit the parameters of that program and then come back to the board and the Council on proposed changes to how that system works.”
The current five-year capital improvement program has over $38 million in funds to help finance CRHA projects.
“It’s also well recognized that there have been stumbling points in our relationship, really, on both sides,” Freas said.
To address those stumbling points, Freas and CRHA Director John Sales have put together a report that seeks to build better connections and communications. For instance, there have been two times in recent memory where the CRHA failed to communicate information to the city resulting in the termination of agreements that then had to be started again. One of these occasions was in March 2025 related to $3 million for a phase of new construction at Sixth Street SE.
“We all know, like any development project, these are complex projects,” Freas said. “There’s a lot of different funding streams coming together, there’s a lot of different interests involved. And so things are going to change over time. We need to have systems of communication, of effective communication in place so that we are responding in a timely manner to the needs of both parties as we go through the project.”
Another area identified for greater communications are shared projects such as several dozen units purchased by CRHA from Woodard Properties in the spring of 2023. Known as the Dogwood Portfolio, Council contributed half of the $10 million purchase cost and the city retains half of the ownership.
“We’ve never really clearly established a reporting timeline or what our expectations are in terms of what we would like and what council would like to receive in terms of those reports,” Freas said.
John Sales, executive director of CRHA, said many of the issues come down to his agency being understaffed. He began in the position in 2020 after serving as the city’s housing manager. Part of his early tenure was spent creating a sustainability plan for the agency’s future.
Previous coverage of that plan:
- Council updated on CRHA’s sustainability plan, March 29, 2023
- Sustainability plan lays out vision for a future with market-rate units on CRHA properties, September 18, 2023
- CRHA seeks $15 million in city funds for redevelopment of Westhaven as part of sustainability plan, October 1, 2023
“We also, at the same time underwent a strategic planning effort which also identified some growth areas that we needed to focus on,” Sales said.
One of those areas is adding more staff to assist in the redevelopment process. CRHA has used a development partner to do a lot of the work to date.
“We didn’t have a dedicated redevelopment department, we now have that and have a team that’s just focused on redevelopment,” Sales said.
The development partner is still in place but now there are CRHA staff who are doing due diligence on paperwork.
Sales also took the time to give Council a status update on redevelopment projects.
“We currently have two major public housing redevelopment projects underway,” Sales said. “South First Street Phase 2 and then Sixth Street Phase 1.”
The first phase at South First Street consists of 62 units in three apartment buildings on what had been a ballfield. The second phase will be 113 townhouse and apartment units at a location where older units have now been demolished. A third phase is planned for the future on a small lot at the corner of Hartman’s Mill Road and South First Street. (learn more)
Some of these units will be five-bedroom units and Sales said the first are expected to come online in April 2026.
“Those will be a lot of the larger families that we originally moved off site a couple years ago getting to come back home,” Sales said. “All the units will be fully subsidized by vouchers so we’ll be able to assist families at 30 percent of [the area median income] and lower on every unit with them only paying 30 percent of their income towards the rent.”
The first phase of Sixth Street SE will replace six units with a 47-unit apartment building. A second phase is in the planning stages and a request for low-income housing tax credits will be made next March.
“We are also simultaneously doing a parallel track redevelopment effort at our scattered site which is [at] Michie, Madison, Riverside and the public housing houses,” Sales said.
Council has already agreed to contribute $15 million to the redevelopment of Westhaven. Sales said residents continue to work to build consensus on an overall design for new apartment buildings and townhomes.
“The Westhaven neighborhood is built on a neighborhood scale that doubles the amount of affordable housing opportunities in townhouses and apartments,” Sales said. “And it’s more than four times the amount of usable outdoor community space.”
Sales said the master plan also includes space for a single-resident occupancy building similar to the Crossings at Fourth and Preston. This would be in the mixed-use building marked in the map below as C.
As for the Dogwood Portfolio, Sales said CRHA is seeking a tax credit application next year to repay the city for its investment. He also said the agency is seeking private developers to enter into land leases to build housing on other properties it has purchased, such as 1016 and 1030 Coleman Street.
“CRHA would retain ownership in the land and would receive the improvements on the land at no cost at the end of the land lease,” Sales said.
Sales said Council will have to approve a request for proposals for that to proceed. That would also likely require the restoration of the city’s Development Code.
The ask
At the end of the presentation, Sales requested direct city funding of $1,000 a year for all of the units that are still considered to be public housing to cover maintenance and upkeep. In all there are 276 CRHA units still considered to be public housing. Others have been converted to federal vouchers.
“Public housing got to its current position because of a lack of funding and the ability to take care of the housing,” Sales said.
Sales also wants the city to cover $500 a year per public housing unit to cover the cost of resident services and wants the city to pay $260,000 a year toward redevelopment “soft costs.” He reminded Council that the Affordable Housing Plan adopted in March 2021 calls for the protection of public housing units.
City Council regards CRHA as a “fundamental agency” in terms of the budget process. Sanders said the question is whether Council wants to pay over $500,000 a year to meet Sales’ requests. Sanders said one reason for this meeting was to ensure there was communication about how the money is spent going forward. There would be an agreement.
“We would just basically work to identify what the deliverables would be and expect to receive reports on those,” Sanders said. “ And then we release the funds on a quarterly basis.”
City Councilor Michael Payne expressed his support for the additional funding.
“I do think it’s important for the city to figure out how to provide a predictable, permanent stream of funding for public housing and resident services,” Payne said. “Because that is a commitment our community has made, City Council has made. I think it’s the desire of the residents in CHRA properties themselves.”
This topic itself is not a line item for City Council’s retreat on Friday and Saturday, but Council will be asked to think strategically about future budget needs.
Even though this story was first published in Charlottesville Community Engagement on August 14, the CRHA website still has an inaccurate list of who serves on their governing body. The CRHA page on Charlottesville’s list of Boards and Commission is up to date.
- Alice Washington, a Commissioner who is a CRHA resident, died in January according to an email announcement from the Public Housing Association of Residents.
- Earl Hicks is now one of two Resident Commissioners. The other position is vacant. Bellamy is listed as a Resident Commissioner but that is incorrect.
- Lisa Clavel and Gillet Rosenblith were appointed at at-large Commissioenrs by City Council in July to fill the seats formerly held by former City Councilor Wes Bellamy and Laura Goldblatt both expired on June 30, 2025. I have a story about the appointment here.
Before you go: This story was published in the August 14, 2025 edition of Charlottesville Community Engagement and then posted here on August 19, 2025. As the days go by, I increasingly believe it necessary to change the way I do all of this, but I’m committed to continuing to the work. Would it be better to publish here first, and then send to the Substack newsletter later? Yes, but this site has to work a lot better first. Let’s get there!
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