KCDC Previews Phase Three of its Five Points Plan to Replace Walter P.

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The third phase of the Knoxville Community Development Corp. Five Points Plan will not only update the city’s 50-year-old affordable-housing stock, it will also serve as an attractive residential “front porch” along Martin Luther King Drive, say city officials. It will not, however, be of any immediate help to the 11,500 people on a waiting list for subsidized housing in the city, or stem the decline in private landlords who accept Section-8 vouchers.

Design plans for the replacement of the Walter P. Taylor Homes and Lee Williams senior housing call for 34 duplex and triplex buildings of varying size and style in the “super block” bordered by Martin Luther King and Kenner avenues and McConnell and S. Kyle streets, according to Barry Long, president of Pittsburgh-based Urban Design Associates, retained to design the third phase. A park will anchor the housing development, and the cottage, triplex, and duplex residences will be designed in Colonial, Victorian, and Federal styles. The current complexes date to 1967, KCDC Director Art Cate says. Cate will retire at the end of the year following a 40-year tenure with the development corporation.

Phase one of the 10-year, $85 million redevelopment plan—construction of a three-story, 90 unit apartment building for elderly and disabled at McConnell Street and Bethel Avenue—is set for completion this spring. The city has contributed $8 million to the redevelopment project, mainly for infrastructure improvements and adjustments. The federal government has covered about half the cost of the project so far, Cate says. Phase two of the master plan, a 10-building development for families and the elderly, will break ground this spring, also along McConnell Street.

Long, Cate, and other KCDC officials provided an overview of phase three Dec. 8 in the Boys and Girls Club on McConnell Street—the club itself would see a massive makeover, according to plans that call for a more walkable urban streetscape and retail development along McConnell and Martin Luther King Avenue. Cherokee Health Systems has committed to an expansion of its Hardy Clinic at the corner of MLK and Kyle, according to KCDC.

“This is a very exciting next step of the Five Points revitalization project. The proposed phase will serve as the new ‘front porch’ to Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue,” KCDC Board of Commissioners Chair Dan Murphy says in a KCDC news release that preceded the meeting. “The site plan is designed to create neighborhood connectivity, outdoor community spaces and housing amenities that will enhance the Five Points community.”

A greenway would tie into the new complex, designed with features that passively deter crime, Long says.

“We can do significantly better (than) the quality of the housing here today,” he told those at the meeting. Residents had few immediate questions, but a young man in attendance inquired about the absence of any additional housing units across all four phases of the plan, which will not exceed the roughly 500 units previously available at Taylor and Williams.
“There is a huge demand for affordable housing,” Cate acknowledges.

Meanwhile, KCDC has a waiting list for units of all types. In some instances the wait is up to two years. Lee Williams has an 18-month waiting list; the waiting list for a two-bedroom unit at Walter Taylor is currently seven to nine months for a three-bedroom apartment. More than 11,000 people, representing nearly 20,000 family members, are currently on waiting lists for all city affordable-housing units.

“Still, the discussion at the end of the day is there’s a housing crisis in Knoxville,” said David Hayes, who came from South Knoxville, after the meeting. “I’d like to see more efforts, community efforts, to give people more housing.” Hayes is a member of Black Lives Matter and attended in support of “poor people in general—making sure people are treated right by the government,” he says.
Cate says a decline in landlords willing to accept rent vouchers is of particular concern.

“I don’t know that there’s a crisis, but one thing that is happening that’s unsettling is a lot of Section 8 (landlords), some of those are electing not to want to remain in the rental-assistance program,” Cate says. Rental owners prefer catering to student housing needs, he says. Available units for the voucher program, in which tax dollars subsidize rent, declined by 300 units over the year.

“The clients out looking have a hard time finding units. Knoxville is in great need of affordable housing units for our Section 8 Voucher program,” says Debbie-Taylor Allen, director of the KCDC voucher program, in an email.

Full completion of all phases of the Five Points redevelopment project is contingent on continued federal funding, and Cate says it’s “too early to tell” what kind of approach President-elect Donald Trump will take to the nation’s affordable housing stock.

Remaining Walter P. Taylor residents will move into the new units in phases, beginning this spring with the opening of the 90-unit Residences at Five Points building.

Knox County-based journalist Thomas Fraser is a native of Charleston, S.C. who grew up in Oak Ridge and Knoxville. He is a graduate of the University of Tennessee and has worked as an editor and reporter for daily newspapers and websites in Tennessee, North Carolina, New Jersey and Virginia.

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