Office of Mayor Gavin Buckley
CITY OF ANNAPOLIS
160 Duke of Gloucester
Annapolis, Maryland 21401
*PRESS RELEASE*
For Immediate Release:
Mitchelle Stephenson, 410-972-7724 or mwstephenson@annapolis.gov
Housing Authority and City of Annapolis
Kick Off Choice Neighborhood Planning Grant
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Officials Conducted ‘Virtual’ Site to Eastport Terrace and Harbour House
Annapolis, MD (March 10, 2022) – On Wednesday, March 10, officials from the Housing Authority of the City of Annapolis (HACA), the City of Annapolis, and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) met for a virtual site visit to kick off a two-year planning process for the potential future redevelopment of Eastport Terrace and Harbour House. The meeting was an introduction of the HUD team to: HACA, City officials and department heads, community stakeholders, and the properties that are subject to a HUD Choice Neighborhood Initiative (CNI) grant.
Choice Neighborhoods is a HUD grant program that leverages public and private dollars to support struggling neighborhoods with distressed public housing. HACA and the City of Annapolis applied for Eastport Terrace and Harbour House to be included in the 2021 grant cycle. In November, the grantees were awarded a $450,000 Planning Grant to begin the process of developing a comprehensive plan to revitalize the two neighborhoods.
The Wednesday meeting began with introductions from Annapolis Mayor Gavin Buckley and HACA Executive Director Melissa Maddox-Evans. During the four-hour meeting, HUD officials heard from City officials, community stakeholders and residents of Eastport Terrace and Harbour House on a variety of topics, including public safety, economic development opportunities, demographic assessments, and education and schools. The kickoff event ended with a discussion of the planning process.
“The conditions of the property and deferred maintenance issues long predate both myself and Melissa,” Mayor Buckley said. “We can’t make up for those lost opportunities and those challenges, but we can acknowledge them and begin to move forward.”
According to the HUD award letter, Planning Grants “enable communities to create a rigorously-developed plan and build support necessary for neighborhood transformation to be successful.”
Throughout the two-year planning process that the Planning Grant covers, HACA and the City will work with community partners and neighborhood stakeholders to create a Transformation Plan for Eastport Terrace-Harbour House. At the end of the planning process, if the component pieces are all in place, including plans for Housing, Neighborhood, People, and Financing, HACA and the City may be eligible to draw down on the funding necessary to implement the redevelopment. The funding allocations are to be determined but could be tens of millions of dollars in federal investments.
ABOUT EASTPORT TERRACE-HARBOUR HOUSE: The Harbour House/Eastport Terrace target neighborhood is a 29-acre parcel in Eastport that includes Eastport Terrace, 84 public housing apartments built in 1953, and Harbour House, 274 public housing apartments built in 1964.
ABOUT CHOICE NEIGHBORHOOD INITIATIVE: For more than two decades, CNI grants have helped transform some of the most distressed public housing in the nation, in cities including Perkins Somerset Oldtown in Baltimore (slated for completion in 2024) as well as Seattle, Cincinnati, San Antonio, Tampa and Baltimore.
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