Shenandoah County:
“A proposal to build low-income senior citizen housing in
downtown Woodstock has many town and Shenandoah County residents upset. At a
public hearing during last Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting, at least a
dozen people criticized or defended the proposal to transfer county land to
People Inc. for a senior citizen housing development.
Previously, the Shenandoah Area Agency on Aging had planned
to build affordable housing for senior citizens on a small tract of land across
the street from the old Woodstock School on Court Street. SAAA had also planned
to renovate the old school and use part of it for office space. The
organization started encountering severe financial difficulties in 2011 and did
not move forward with the project even with a large federal grant from the
Department of Housing and Urban Development. About $1.3 million in grant money
was transferred from SAAA to People Inc., which dropped the plans to renovate
the old school.
Many Woodstock residents who live close to the school said
on Tuesday that they don’t want to see the building go to waste, and they do
not support a project that would not put it to good use. People Inc.’s Vice
President for Development, Bryan Phipps, said the organization is not in a
position to use the school. It does not need it for office space and was told
by HUD that it could not use the funds to renovate the school. The grant money
is only designated for new construction.
‘Those funds can’t be used to do anything with the school,’ Phipps
said. The $1.3 million in grant funds would be used to build 11 housing units
for low-income seniors. To qualify for the housing, families or individuals
must meet income requirements and have at least one household member age 62 or
older.
County residents who spoke at Tuesday’s public hearing said
they didn’t feel there was a large need for affordable senior housing in
Shenandoah County. Many Court Street residents who can see the old,
deteriorating school from their windows also said they didn’t want to see any
such project move forward in that area if the school wouldn’t be renovated.”
~ Writes Kassondra Cloos of The Shenandoah Valley-Herald
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