Effort to restore historic housing shows progress

It’s time for our periodic update on the plan to improve Rosewood Courts. I’m pleased to report this can be viewed as a progress report, as in there are hints of progress on an important project that has defied progress.

The quick history: As a project built by the feds in 1939 as the first public housing for blacks, Rosewood Courts on Rosewood Avenue in East Austin has an important place in local and national history. But as homes, despite patchwork upgrades over the years, the 124 apartments are nothing we’d allow to be built today.

So the Housing Authority of the City of Austin, which is a public but not a city government entity, decided several years ago to seek a $30 million federal grant to help pay for 21st-century housing that could cost a projected $40 million to $55 million. Six of the original 24 buildings would be preserved.

That wasn’t enough preservation for some folks. The project stalled, and Austin City Council Member Ora Houston, whose district includes Rosewood Courts, stepped in and got a panel appointed with an eye on maximizing preservation.

So that’s where we were. We’re now at a new place with a report and a new president, both of which could affect where we go next.

The report is a preservation feasibility study recently completed by h+uo architects of Austin that captures the challenge and cost of preserving the history of Rosewood Courts while also providing more and better low-income housing.

Houston has shared the concerns of preservationists and was instrumental in putting together a working group that recently received the architects’