“There’s going to be no drama,” said Richard Collins, address-ing a crowd of about 40 people, mostly from the Little High Street neighborhood association.
Collins, an expert in “environmental negotiation,” hoped for civil discussion, but that hasn’t been the tone so far between Little High Street residents and officials at Region Ten. A simple case of miscommunication between the agency and the neighborhood has escalated into a battle of wills, with no end in sight.
On Saturday afternoon, October 29, Collins moderated an open forum between the Little High Area Neighborhood Association (LHANA) and Region Ten, a local nonprofit agency that serves people with mental health problems and substance addictions. The forum, held at the Charlottesville Community Design Center on the Downtown Mall, aimed to reconcile differences between the neighborhood and the agency stemming from an apartment complex Region Ten is building on Little High.
There was a lot of talking during the four-hour forum, but not as much listening, and even less resolution to a conflict that speaks to many of the city’s larger issues of affordable housing and neighborhood interests.
In August, a nonprofit development company called Community Services Housing, Inc., which acts as Region Ten’s real estate and development arm, purchased an apartment complex at 1111-1113 Little High St., just east of Martha Jefferson Hospital. When CSHI sent bulldozers to start ripping up the parking lot, neighbors say they were shocked.
LHANA formed four years ago when the complex’s former owner, local real estate magnate Richard Spurzem, planned to redevelop the site with high-end apartments. LHANA’s first mission was to provide neighborhood input on the project’s design and landscaping, and Spurzem promised he would meet with the neighborhood before he started new construction.
But those meetings never happened. Instead, Spurzem decided to cash in.
Spurzem sold the complex for nearly $2 million shortly after his first meeting with LHANA. CSHI bought the 24-unit complex, with plans to add 16 more apartments, and house Region Ten clients in the 40 one-bedroom units. When CSHI president Bob Smith began construction in September, neighbors protested that they had been left out of the loop.
“It was pretty obvious something was going on when they brought the earth-movers in here,” says LHANA spokesman Mark Haskins. “Everybody’s heads were popping out of their doors. It’s fair to say it was a bombshell.”
LHANA members claim Region Ten executive director Philip Campbell first denied that there was any close connection between CSHI and Region Ten, and that it took Freedom of Information Act research to confirm otherwise.
Because CSHI and Region Ten are separate organizations, Campbell says he didn’t hear about the project until late summer. “We have tried to answer their questions as honestly as possible,” says Campbell.
When LHANA finally got in touch with CSHI president Bob Smith, the neighbors hoped to have a say in how the building would be designed and managed. Instead, “Smith said we could have an opinion on the color of the roof tiles and the siding,” says Haskins. That’s not what he and LHANA wanted to hear.
In response, the neighborhood mounted a noisy campaign, showing up at Region Ten board meetings and alerting the press, in an effort to put political pressure on Campbell and Region Ten’s board of directors. The neighborhood says they want Campbell to take them seriously. Further, they want Region Ten to promise that the new apartments will be built with good-looking architecture, not the cruddy old ’70s design they see now. Finally, the neighborhood wants Region Ten’s assurance that there will be a program in place at the apartments to handle any incidents that may arise from the agency’s handicapped clients.
While Campbell is dealing with his own management issues inside Region Ten [see sidebar, pg. 21], LHANA says they feel ignored. Accordingly, the volume is only getting louder.
“Bait and switch”
The apartment building at 1111-1113 Little High St. was built in 1972, as evidenced by the dated sun-yellow siding that still covers the brick façade. According to City records Spurzem bought the complex for $650,000 (a third of his eventual selling price) in 1999.
“When I bought the property, it was filled with drug dealers,” says Spurzem. “There were gunshots and SWAT team raids and all that crap. We evicted some people, and we ended up renting the majority of the units to Region Ten clients. The place is 100 times better than it was.”
After buying the complex, Spurzem says he evicted troublemakers and put the rest of the tenants on month-to-month leases. Meanwhile, he obtained a special-use permit from the City that would allow him to add 16 new units, and turn the entire complex into a total of 40 upscale apartments. After meeting with LHANA and obtaining their approval on the project, Spurzem decided to scrap his plans and sell the property.
CSHI president Bob Smith says that in 2004, former Region Ten director James Peterson gave him the go-ahead to pursue purchase of the apartments. “I told Jim this property was on the market,” says Smith. “I said, ‘I know we don’t like to concentrate people in one place, but what do you think about this?’ He said if we can make the rents make sense, please go ahead.”
When Smith and CSHI asked about buying the apartments, Spurzem initially brushed them off. “I thought there was no way they could afford it, not with the rent they’d get from Section 8 vouchers,” he says. “But because of their access to favorable financing and tax credits, they were able to pay a price that made it worthwhile for me.”
Smith signed a contract with Spurzem, then went to the Virginia Housing Devel-opment Authority in search of money. He came away with nearly $3 million in State and federal grants and tax credits; putting the deal together was very time consuming, Smith says.
“From my standpoint, it has turned into a real nightmare,” says Smith. “As you can image, the IRS has a lot—a lot—of paperwork.”
When Smith and CSHI bought the site for $1,955,000 in August, they also got the special use permit Spurzem had secured to build 16 new units. However, Smith was not legally obligated to meet with the neighborhood, or to design the apartments with “upscale” architecture.
Yet Kenneth Schwartz, a UVA architecture professor who served as a panelist at Saturday’s forum, said that much of the current turmoil could have been avoided if Smith had voluntarily lived up to Spurzem’s promise to meet with the neighborhood. “It’s good common sense, and good citizenship, even if it is not mandated.”
Instead of meeting with the neighbors, Smith said he spent the summer directing his efforts at navigating the federal and State funding mazes. He did, however, inform one Little High Street resident of his plans—City Councilor Blake Caravati, who lives directly across the street from the project.
At the forum on Saturday, City Council veteran Caravati drew applause from his neighbors when he urged Region Ten and CSHI to slow down on the project, listen to LHANA, and redesign the project to better accommodate the neighborhood. “If it takes extra money to make it, we’ll go out and get the money,” said Caravati, in full politician mode. “It can be done.”
After the meeting, though, Caravati struck a note not often heard in politics—admitting that he “dropped the ball.”
“I knew the project was happening. I should have gone to the neighborhood and I didn’t do that. It dropped off my radar,” Caravati says.
The Charlottesville way
After Peterson gave Smith permission to purchase the apartment complex, Peterson left Region Ten and was replaced by Philip Campbell in September 2004. At the October 29 forum, Campbell said he had no idea bulldozers were about to roll into Little High Street. Region Ten Board Chair Barbara Barrett says the board didn’t know, either.
“It was a comedy of errors,” Barrett says. “When Jim Peterson left, the knowledge of this thing left. The board didn’t know about it, Phil didn’t know about it. It just fell through the cracks.”
In their protests against Region Ten, LHANA has been careful to insist that their concerns have nothing to do with a reluctance to house handicapped people in the neighborhood. Of course, real estate assessments are climbing in Little High—Caravati’s house, for example, just across the street from the project, is assessed at $292,400.
The construction crews are still working at 1111-1113 Little High, and each day it becomes less likely that Smith will make drastic changes to the architecture. Now, however, Little High Street residents are taking their complaints to the Virginia Housing Development Authority, which controls the project’s purse strings. “We found them very receptive to the idea that changes to the project are possible,” says Haskins.
Further, Reed Banks, director of Region Ten’s psychiatric rehabilitation, has also been striking notes of compromise. He says the agency will take steps to head off any problems that could arise from such a high concentration of mentally disabled people.
Banks says that CSHI will strive to rent apartments only to Region Ten clients; however, anyone who is both poor and disabled can apply for an apartment, and CSHI cannot discriminate. However, Smith can exclude someone with a serious criminal record, or if their mental health issues get too serious. “If they need treatment and refuse, and that has an impact on their behavior as a tenant, they will have to move somewhere else,” says Banks. “Little High residents will have my name and other names to call if there are problems.”
Haskins says he’d like to hear Campbell reinforce Banks’ pledge. Instead, Haskins accuses Campbell of denying knowledge of the project and blowing off LHANA. “When they don’t talk to you—and when they do talk to you they talk to you like a child—what do they expect?” Campbell says he is optimistic that the groups will solve the problem, although he won’t say exactly how. “This will get worked out by continuing to communicate with the neighborhood,” he says. “There is a willingness to do what can be done.”
Caravati suggests Region Ten take a cue from City Council—when in doubt, create a task force. “It’s the Charlottesville way,” Caravati says. “You come to the neighborhood willing to make compromises, and they’ll stop coming after you. If you don’t do that, you can look forward to a few months of pain.”
Inside Region Ten
Finding affordable housing is a major challengeThe Region Ten Community Services Board is an independent, publicly funded agency that provides services for people with mental illness, retardation and substance addiction who live in Charlottesville and Albemarle, Flu-vanna, Greene, Louisa and Nelson counties. After 35 years, Region Ten serves 5,500 clients and employs 600 people.
Region Ten clients typically have few employment options, and many live on $500 a month from Social Security. Rents in Charlottesville hover around $600 per bedroom, and many landlords refuse to accept tenants who need government rent assistance. That’s why Region Ten partners with the nonprofit Community Services Housing, Inc. to help find stable homes for about 250 of their clients. About 45 local landlords house Region Ten clients—most of them in Charlottesville, near social service agencies and public transportation.
“We can provide all the services in the world, but our clients are going to deteriorate if they don’t have a safe place they can afford,” says Reed Banks, Region Ten’s director of psychiatric rehabilitation.—J.B.
Campbell’s soup
Tough times for Region Ten directorThe open forum between Region Ten and Little High Street residents, held on Saturday, October 29, was supposed to help ease tensions. However, when Region Ten executive director Philip Campbell addressed the neighbors, he seemed to succeed only in making things worse.
Campbell noted that the Little High Area Neighborhood Association (LHANA) approved plans for upscale apartments at 1111-1113 Little High St.; now, however, they oppose cheaper apartments for Region Ten clients. “What has changed?” Campbell asked the neighborhood.
“I resent your question, and the implication that we’re prejudiced,” resident Bill Weaver shot back.
Property values in the Little High Street area have been climbing by about 11 percent each year—Weaver’s own house near the development site is assessed at $294,900, while houses in that neighborhood have gone on the market for more than $400,000. Still, LHANA has been careful that they do not oppose Region Ten’s housing plans with a “not in my backyard” attitude. Instead, they are asking Region Ten to improve the architecture and the on-site service program at the apartment complex.
While other Region Ten officials have been willing take LHANA at their word and move toward resolution, Campbell has stonewalled the neighbor’s requests for information and questioned their motives, exacerbating the situation.
Meanwhile, Campbell is facing internal strife at Region Ten. According to current and former employees who have asked to remain anonymous, the agency is rife with tension over “management issues.” Sleuthing on Google, some employees have discovered that Campbell’s tenure with at least one previous employer has also been marked by controversy.
In 1993, parents and guardians of students at the Judge Rotenberg Center in Canton, Massachusetts, filed a complaint in court against Campbell in his capacity as the Massachusetts Commissioner of the Department of Mental Retardation. In 1995, Judge Elizabeth O’Neill LaStaiti wrote that some of Campbell’s testimony was “deliberately false.”
Campbell says it is unfair to take that phrase out of context, from a acrimonious legal wrangle that has lasted for more than two decades. The judge’s comments “didn’t lead to any further accusations—no charges, no convictions,” says Campbell. “Nothing ever came of it.”—J.B.