Charlotte city leaders recommend $12.4 million plan to build affordable housing

CHARLOTTE — Charlotte city leaders laid out plans Monday night to help the Queen City handle its affordable-housing crisis.

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The land in southwest Charlotte near the North Carolina Works Career Center and Samaritans Purse could be home to the Forest Park apartments.

The complex will have 200 affordable units at a cost of $2.5 million, which includes $40 million set aside for the city’s poorest residents.

In the Eastland area, more affordable housing units are proposed. The Evoke Living at Eastland would provide 78 units and cost $2.5 million.

There could be 602 units of affordable housing funded by the Charlotte City Council.

“There’s a crisis,” Councilwoman Renee Johnson, D-District 4, said. “There’s a real crisis. People cannot afford to live here, and it is getting worse.”

A plot of land in east Charlotte was donated by the late restaurant owner Scott Brooks and his brother David Brooks.

The city plans to invest $230,000 from the Housing Trust Fund to help build the townhomes.

Of the 602 proposed units, there are 17 townhomes built by Habitat for Humanity and are the only ones slated for home ownership.

“Still not doing enough on homeownership,” Councilman Malcolm Graham, D-District 2, said.

There is a list of proposed projects for the $12.4 million that is available after voters approved money for the Housing Trust Fund.

The pot of money will be depleted when the Charlotte City Council votes in favor of the projects on April 11.

Some council members said that more needs to be done.

[WSOC SPECIAL SECTION: Affordable Housing Crisis]

“There is no quick-fix solution for us to get out of this,” Graham said. “No matter what you hear around town.”

“We need more housing of all types in this city,” Councilman Braxton Winston, D-at-large, said. “I think that is clear.”

(Watch the video below: ‘Complicated’: Development for affordable housing near South End runs into setback)

‘Complicated’: Development for affordable housing near South End runs into setback

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