EJP congratulates Orlando Housing Authority and Lift Orlando on the successful 2023 Choice Neighborhoods Planning grant application for $500,000. EJP served as grant manager for the application and will continue to assist OHA and Lift Orlando as Planning Coordinator throughout the planning process.
By Sam Martello
September 26, 2023
Changes are coming to two neighborhoods on the west side of Orlando.
Lift Orlando and the Orlando Housing Authority just received funding to move forward with planning development for Lake Mann Homes and Lorna Doone Apartments.
The organizations just received a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Choice Neighborhoods Planning Grant for $500,000.
This gets the ball rolling on a $1.8 million comprehensive redevelopment plan for Washington Shores’ Lake Mann Homes and West Lakes’ Lorna Doone Apartments.
This team of developers is on the hook for the rest of the funding.
“We want the residents to tell us what they want their community to look like,” said Sandy Hostetter, the vice president of asset development for Lift Orlando.
A strategic advisory group, which will include residents of those housing sites, will be created to provide input and oversight.
But when some hear the word redevelopment, they say they think of being pushed out of their homes. Lift Orlando officials said that is not what this is.
“This isn’t about gentrification or moving residents out and replacing it with housing for someone else,” Hostetter said. “This is the opposite. This is about them creating a plan for what they want their housing to look like, and their community to look like. We make good on the plan.”
Organizers will have to survey all residents of both properties. They must capture no less than 65% of the surveys. Their goal is 80%.
On top of the plans for these two communities, developers will also plan to add another 315 units of mixed-income units to the area.
Following the completion of the planning grant, Lift Orlando and OHA will be eligible to apply for a HUD Choice Neighborhoods Implementation Grant, which awards upwards of $50 million to go toward the physical development of the plans.
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