When the Charlotte Housing Authority backed away from plans to build low-income units in affluent Ballantyne, much of the unflattering focus fell on Charles Woodyard, the agency’s president and CEO.

Some critics in the African American community whispered that Woodyard had bowed to pressure from wealthy homeowners.

At the request of Qcitymetro.com, Woodyard sat last week for a Q&A to talk about public housing in general and why the Ballantyne project was scuttled.

Below is a transcript, edited for brevity and clarity:

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Q. What do you say to those disappointed by CHA’s decision to walk away from the Ballantyne project?
I tell those people we’ll do a better job the next time and that we haven’t given up on south Charlotte, the Ballantyne neighborhood, and haven’t necessarily given up on this particular site. I couldn’t handicap it right now and say, “There’s a 30 percent chance of us going back,” but we haven’t definitely given up on that site. We believe very strongly that affordable housing should be appropriately disbursed around Charlotte, and we’re willing to be on the vanguard of the effort to do so. It didn’t work out this time, but I think it will work out in the future.

Q. Were you surprised or caught off guard by the level of opposition?
No, I wasn’t surprised or caught off guard. I think this was among the most emotional oppositions that we had ever had. We rezoned a parcel we owned in SouthPark, right across from the mall. There was public hosing already on the site, and we got vehement opposition.

Q. Why do you think opposition was so strong in Ballantyne?
I think people are misinformed about the clients that we serve. I think people are misinformed about the impact of affordable housing on factors that mean a lot to them. They are misinformed about the impact of crime in their neighborhoods. Property values, they’re misinformed about that, and I think they are misinformed about what happens to schools – really good schools – when you introduce some low-income families to the mix. So I think it’s misperception, and I think it requires some education, and I think it requires proof of our side of things.

Q. So, what’s the reality?
The reality is that affordable housing does not bring crime. We had a study conducted by UNC Charlotte a few years ago. It found that crime in neighborhoods is more impacted by the neighborhoods’ proximity to commercial areas – strip centers and small commercial areas. And property values are not impacted by affordable housing, especially when affordable housing is done in the right way, as we usually do it, in a mixed-income configuration. Property values are most impacted by proximity to uptown, to light rail or to these major shopping areas like SouthPark and Ballantyne.

Q. But no one who paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for a home wants to see low-income units go up next door.
Let’s look at uptown. Let’s look at First Ward. There are several homes in First Ward that are $400,000 to $500,000, and they are literally a block or two from public housing. These homes were built after the public housing was built there, in a mixed-income environment... The appreciation of homes in uptown -- these single-family homes – outpaces every other area. The appreciation over the last five to seven years, before the recession hit, has been phenomenal.

Q. What went wrong in Ballantyne?
One of the things that went wrong is that the project, as we initially envisioned it, did not conform to general development guideline. We wanted too much density, too many units. We asked for 110 units. And through our negotiations with the planning staff an the neighborhood, that got cut down to 86 units. And even though the cost of land for this piece of property was low relative to Ballantyne, it was still very high for us. It was among the highest, if not the highest, cost-per-acre that we had ever bought. And so not being able to put enough units on there really meant the per-unit costs just went up farther than we were comfortable with.

Q. Did CHA perform enough due diligence in this case?
I think that the Authority was anxious to do Ballantyne, and anxious to get this particular parcel into the low-income tax credit cycle for this year and get the funding together. We could have forged ahead. We could have bought the property and waited till next year, and that is still an opportunity. But as far as getting ready for this cycle, we probably were not ready.

Q. Why was making this cycle important?
The low-income housing tax credit application process is very competitive. Next year we’ll have some other projects in line for tax credits, so we didn’t want to compete against ourselves. So you have to be strategic about what you introduce.

Q. Has Ballantyne become a line in the sand?
I don’t view Ballantyne as a line in the sand, but based on the feedback that I get from the neighbors and other people in the community, a large number of people who care about this view Ballantyne as a line in the sand.

Q. It came out later that a CHA executive had a questionable business relationship with the private developers in the Ballantyne project – a potential conflict of interest. We heard that a Ballantyne opponent had threatened to go public with this to embarrass CHA. Is that true?
No, that is not true. This whole thing has been exposed anyway. That was not the issues.

Q. So you didn’t feel at any time that someone was holding this over CHA’s head?
I didn’t feel that way. It may have been the case, I don’t know.

Q. Where do you see the future of public housing?
It’s going to look like First Ward. It’s going to look like the Park at Oaklawn. It’s going to look like Arbor Glen. It’s going to look like Seigle Point, which used to be Piedmont Court. I think the mixed-income approach is the best way to protect the public’s investment in affordable housing. It’s the best way for the families who receive public assistance to be integrated into larger neighborhoods. It’s the best way for affordable housing to be a compliment and add something positive to a community rather than be a detraction.

Q. Would you like to see City Council require that low-income housing be included in all future development?
I would, and I think most of the council knows how affordable housing proponents feel about that. I can’t suppose to tell council what they need to do, but some inclusionary housing policies, I think, have to be put in place. I think they are thinking about that now, and I think they will develop something that goes farther than what they have on the books right now.
 

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