Housing Authority weighs fate of Broadhead Manor
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In the 31 years Lorraine Green lived in Broadhead Manor, not once had she experienced flooding from nearby Chartiers Creek.
Tony Tye, Post-GazetteLorraine Green speaks about her 31 years at Broadhead Manor as city Housing Authority officials survey the flood damage there yesterday.
Click photo for larger image.
But a month ago, the creek overflowed its banks and dumped tons of water into the shallow basin in Pittsburgh's Fairywood neighborhood that contains the eight buildings that remain of Broadhead Manor. Once the water began to seep over Mazzette Road and into Broadhead, it had nowhere to go but up.
Green said she watched water rise in the baseball field behind her apartment in the public housing development during the Sept. 17 deluge from the remnants of Hurricane Ivan.
"It looked like a pool instead of a baseball field," she said.
The flood inundated six of the eight buildings, including the building with Green's apartment, filling the first floor of each unit with as much as 6 feet of water. Forty-eight families had to be evacuated that night, mostly to the Northview Heights public housing development.
The city Housing Authority hired an architectural firm to assess damage and the future of the property. Yesterday, Executive Director Keith Kinard disclosed the authority's options during a tour of the development.
The 64 units that remain at Broadhead Manor are but a fraction of the 364 units once located there. Most of the units were demolished in 1998, but 64 survived after residents teamed up with a private developer to manage the property.
The devastation of 48 of the units in six buildings was so extensive that nothing but total renovation, including the replacement of all furnaces, hot water heaters, first floor walls and most plumbing, will suffice. The cost for such a rehabilitation, including architectural fees, would be about $3.66 million, or $82,000 per unit.
The viability of the rehabilitation option is questionable.
Astorino, the architectural firm hired by the Housing Authority, noted that Broadhead Manor is 63 years old and concluded, "The devastation of the recent flooding may have ended the useful life of these structures."
As part of the assessment, the architectural firm hired another company to study why the flooding occurred. Broadhead Manor is outside the 100-year flood plain.
Another option for displaced residents would be to find replacement housing in another of the Housing Authority's properties. Most of the families who were at Broadhead Manor have been temporarily relocated to 10 different public housing developments and four other single-family public housing properties. A handful of residents, including Lorraine Green, have opted to move in with relatives.
The Housing Authority has plenty of space. There are 549 vacant units among the authority's 6,066 units spread across 28 family communities and elderly high-rises.
A third option would be to provide a subsidized housing certificate to each family, which would permit them to find homes in privately owned properties. The certificates, formerly known as Section 8 and dubbed the Housing Choice Voucher Program under the Bush administration, are flexible and permit the holder to find a rental property anywhere in the United States.
Shortly after Broadhead Manor was slated for demolition, the neighboring development of Westgate Village was in its death throes. The privately owned Section 8 development with 434 units is now vacant and patrolled by private security officers.
The property is owned by the Urban Redevelopment Authority and the buildings by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. HUD foreclosed on the development three years ago.
The URA and HUD would like to find a developer for the property and the Housing Authority, entirely funded by HUD, could be the right entity. The last stop on Kinard's tour yesterday was a ride through Westgate Village to show firsthand the condition of the property.
The development of a new public housing community to relocate the Broadhead Manor residents would not come cheaply. The average cost of a new public housing unit is nearly $178,000.
A new 64-unit development of all public housing would cost $11.3 million, Kinard said. The cost of a 128-unit development that included public and private units would be $22.7 million, he said.
The Housing Authority is trying to obtain interim funding for Broadhead Manor from a HUD emergency fund for properties damaged by natural disasters, said Jeff Bees, the authority's chief financial officer. If approved, that money would cover the $3.6 million cost of rehabilitation, he said.
The authority also has applied for subsidized housing certificates for each of the displaced families, he said.
If the Housing Authority opts to renovate the damaged properties, Green, who is president of the Broadhead Manor tenant council, said she'll move back without hesitation.
First Published October 16, 2004 12:00 am
