Wake board to vote on low-income housing proposal

The Wake County Board of Commissioners is expected to vote today on whether to help turn a downtown apartment complex off Glenwood Avenue into housing for low-income workers.

The commissioners tabled the proposal on the George's Mews apartment complex at their last meeting and asked the Raleigh City Council to hold a public hearing on it. The City Council reaffirmed its support for the project but held no public hearing.

Community Alternatives for Supportive Abodes wants to turn George's Mews' 26 one-bedroom apartments into a mix of rent-controlled apartments and housing for the disabled.

CASA's proposal to buy George's Mews for $2.14 million would be funded by the city, Wake County and state agencies. Raleigh's City Council has already agreed to contribute $926,164. The county is being asked to provide $566,500.

The project has sparked a vigorous public debate about the effects of such housing on neighborhoods, and about the process by which the city funds different affordable housing projects around the city.

Advocates for the disabled and for affordable housing have argued in favor of CASA's project, while a number of Glenwood-Brooklyn residents have come out against it.

The Historic Glenwood/Brooklyn Neighborhood Association recently polled its members about the CASA project, and 56 of the 81 members who voted opposed the project on the grounds that it is not in line with the city's "scattered site" affording housing policy. That policy was designed to avoid concentrating assisted-rental housing in minority and low-income neighborhoods.

CASA already operates a Cleveland Street quadruplex a block from George's Mews.

The county commissioners meet today at 2 p.m. in the Wake County Office Building, 337 S. Salisbury St.