Charlottesville EDA hears from nonprofit developers on affordable housing bridge loan program

Earlier this year, the city’s Office of Economic Development launched an affordable housing program that is separate from the one overseen by the Department of Neighborhood Development Services.

“The Charlottesville Affordable Bridge Loan (CABL) Program provides short-term, low-interest financing to not-for-profit housing organizations working to preserve and create affordable housing within the City of Charlottesville,” reads the website for the program.

These groups can get loans of up to $500,000 with a two percent interest rate over a 24-month financing period. Decisions are made within 30 days according to the website.

While there have been inquiries into the program, no loans have been made yet. Economic Development Director Chris Engel invited representatives of those organizations to the October 13 meeting of the EDA. He said the project has been live for about six months and the goal was to get feedback on how the program could be

“What we’re hoping to get from you all today is examples, if you have any to share on near misses, why or why not, why didn’t they happen, just to kind of share with the board,” Engel said.

The executive director of the Piedmont Community Land Trust which operates in all six localities in the Thomas Jefferson Planning District. The entity works closely with the the Piedmont Housing Alliance to pursue one mechanism to keep ownership or rental costs lower. l

“The way it works for all 55 of our properties, we own the land and we sell the home on the land and enter into a ground lease with the new homeowner,” Oyola said. “What that does is that it ensures that as the home resells over time, the ground lease is a very legally enforceable mechanism to make sure that the appreciation on the resale price over time only goes up but so much.”

Oyola said those who buy land trust homes can still benefit from some of the gains of appreciation of the structure. The land trust also has the right of first refusal.

Oyola gave the example of a home on Prospect Avenue where the owner approached PHA about buying the property.

“We ended up acquiring it in early 2025 for $247,500,” Oyola said. “The tenant at that time remained in that home and… went into a rent-to-own lease.”

That person paid $180,000, slightly below the $218,100 assessment for the structure. The 0.08 acre property is assessed at $62,500. In 2016, the land was officially valued at $20,400. Erin O’Hare recently profiled this transaction for Charlottesville Tomorrow.

Oyola said the land trust is approached by some landlords who are ready to sell, but the deals don’t always work out. In one case on Orangedale Avenue, the tenant had no viable pathway to own the home. Another project on Montrose Avenue, a duplex, did not work out because the deal got too expensive.

“The large gap between just the simple cost of developing or redeveloping a property and the actual sales price that’s affordable to our demographics, it just keeps increasing,” Oyola said. “And that means that us planning for a subsidy and feeling confident in our ability to fundraise that subsidy, it’s getting more and more complex and requires— typically requires more time.”

Dan Rosensweig, the executive director of Habitat for Humanity of Greater Charlottesville, attended the meeting because he did not know the Charlottesville Affordable Bridge Loan program had gone live. He did say he thought it could work as a line of credit to assist nonprofit developers in closing deals.

“If there’s any way that we could kind of restructure this so that we’re pre-approved, if there’s a way that we know what’s in the balance of this account the way we would if we had our own line of credit, and we could use it, it could supplement some of the lines that I have,” Rosensweig said.

For instance, Habitat also has a right of first refusal on their homes and access to additional and ready funding could help guarantee they can always make the acquisition.

“We almost always want to buy it but it all sort of depends on our liquidity at the moment,” Rosensweig said.

The conversation continues with detailed discussions of how the program might be used and what changes might be made to make it more useful for nonprofit developers. No changes were made at the meeting.

A request for additional documentation from the city’s Communications and Public Engagement office was sent at 4:52 p.m. on October 29, 2026 and no response has been received. This is what I sent:

“I wanted to see if any loans have been made yet, and who they might have been made to. Perhaps this information was on a slide at the October 13, 2026 EDA meeting? The recording I have suggests there was a slide.”

A response came in after this edition of the newsletter was published at 12:55 p.m. on October 3, 2026.

“There have been inquiries into the program, but no loans have been given out yet,” wrote Caroline Rice, Public Engagement Coordinator for the City of Charlottesville.

Beginning in November, I am going to post the questions I send to the city publicly and post their responses. I need data on their lack of responsiveness. What percentage of my queries as a reporter are ignored?

Thank you to a volunteer for supplying me with that recording of the meeting so I could produce this report. The meeting took place in CitySpace where there are cameras and microphones to document the public business.

The meetings of the Charlottesville Economic Development Authority are public business.

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