Housing Authority preparing for busy 2018
Work at Joe Wright Village is expected to be completed before the end of the year.
Members of the Northwest Georgia Housing Authority were told to eat right and get their running shoes on to keep up with modernization plans in 2018.
Norman Pleger, director of modernization, said work to complete the new Joe Wright Village in North Rome is scheduled for completion before Thanksgiving, and plans for the redevelopment of close to 90 new housing units in East Rome should start to take off later this summer.
Plans are for the 68-units to replace the old Altoview Terrace public housing at Spring Creek and East 14th Streets. The plans include a large community room, pool and tennis court.
The housing authority is in negotiations with the Greater Mount Calvary Baptist Church, 445 E. 14th St., to acquire a parcel adjacent to the church to help with storm water run-offs, which Pleger said would also benefit the church.
Another 25 to 30 units will be constructed along the Maple Street and East 12th Street corridor.
Plans are to finance that project, in part, through tax credits that are being sought through the Georgia De- partment of Community Affairs, Authority Executive Director Sandra Hudson said.
“We haven’t decided if we want to go it alone,” Hudson said referring to the development of the new complex. “DCA may say you need a co-developer.”
Certificate of occupancy inspections are underway at the first eight units in the Joe Wright Village complex off Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.
Construction has started on the remaining units and the entire complex is slated to be completed late this fall.
The complex will consist of four single family homes and ten duplex units.
The Northwest Georgia Housing Authority approved rent and utility allowance packages for 2018 during their meeting held on Wednesday morning.
The rental rates range from a low of $309 for a one-bedroom unit up to $814 for a five-bedroom unit.
Residents of public housing also get a utility allowance that can range from $66 to $158 a month for natural gas and from
$36 to $148 a month for electricity.
Hudson told the authority
that her staff would bring some budget revisions to the retirement
package for employees to the February meeting.
She is expecting to recommend a reduction in the authority’s contribution to the employee retirement package from a flat eight percent a month to match whatever the employees contribute themselves.
Finance Director Tammy Morrow projected that could save up to $8,000 a month.
The Housing Authority’s budget needs to be tweaked, Hudson said, because the Department of Housing and Urban Development had cut the annual subsidy to the Northwest Georgia Housing Authority by $300,000 this year.