Six Points area of Highland Park is becoming an affordable housing hub

The Six Points area of Highland Park is poised to get even more affordable housing after Enterprise Community Development broke ground on its third major project in the neighborhood on Oct. 2.

Green Park Apartments, which will sit at the corner of East Brookland Park Boulevard and Woodcliff Avenue, will create 43 low to moderate income apartments as well as 3,000 square feet of street-level commercial space. When combined with the 66-unit Highland Terrace completed this summer and the 77-unit Highland Park Senior Apartments completed in 2016, Enterprise projects will have added 186 affordable units within a roughly two-block radius.

“It is amazing, the transformation that has taken place, especially right here in this little small few blocks,” said City Councilor Ellen Robertson, who represents the 6th District, where all the projects are located.

The groundbreaking was coupled with the grand opening of Highland Terrace, where Enterprise said 60 of the 66 units are already occupied, and it represents the latest push in the city’s efforts to develop affordable housing after several years of steep rises in rent and home prices.

“We need affordable housing more than we ever have in this country,” said Shaun Donovan, president and CEO of Enterprise Community Partners, the larger organization through which Enterprise Community Development operates. “I have never seen our crisis this deep or this broad across the nation.”

Mayor Levar Stoney acknowledged complaints from residents about increasingly high housing costs.

“The competitive advantage that we’ve had as a city for years has been affordability,” he said. “Unfortunately, with the influx of new residents coming in with disposable incomes that are high, the highest that we’ve ever seen in the city’s history, that affordability is now relative.”

Richmond awarded Enterprise a performance grant for Green Park Apartments, which are being developed on a 0.6-acre lot across the street from Highland Terrace that is currently empty. Under that agreement, Enterprise will be allowed to keep any increases in real estate tax on the property for the next 30 years. Among other obligations, it will be required to restrict residents to people making 60% of the area median income.

The three Enterprise projects aren’t the only sites being eyed for affordable housing developments in the Six Points vicinity. This September, City Council also approved a similar performance grant for the development of 56 affordable housing units just two blocks away. The Saint Elizabeth Apartments are slated to be built on Fourqurean Lane behind Saint Elizabeth Catholic Church by Commonwealth Catholic Charities Housing Corporation and will also be limited to people making 60% of the area median income.

Finally, Nashville-based developer Elmington is planning to construct an additional 400 units for people making 60% AMI off a 23-acre site that lies nearby off Rady Street. That project has not shown up in the city’s list of affordable housing performance grants awarded to date.

The city’s use of performance grants to encourage affordable housing is fairly recent, the result of a 2022 law backed by Richmond Del. Betsy Carr allowing local economic development authorities to offer incentives for such development.

Robertson said revitalizing Six Points has been a focus of hers for years.

“I’m especially pleased that we have the mix of affordable housing that’s blending in, that we don’t lose that heritage of the community,” she said. “As long as there’s continual development taking place, then you get to where you need to get.”