A community engagement process is about to begin for a garden-apartment complex near Ballston that could, potentially, face redevelopment.
About half of the 512 units in the Ballston Park complex in the Buckingham neighborhood are currently designated as affordable, but that agreement is expiring. At some point in the future, this could entice the property owner to consider redevelopment of the 24.8-acre site.
County Manager Mark Schwartz has empaneled a working group that will begin discussions in October on the future of the apartments.
“We expected to conclude a year from now,” he said. “Community engagement will be a key part of this process.”
Representatives of the 52-building property fronting the 300 block of N. Glebe Road, which is owned by a limited partnership that includes a local nonprofit and is managed by Paradigm, have been discussing its future with county officials over recent months.
“Right now, there are no affordable units at risk,” County Board member Takis Karantonis said at the Sept. 22 Board meeting.
At the Sept. 22 Board meeting, Schwartz said it would not be until 2030 at the earliest that existing tenants could face potential displacement from the apartments, which were built in the 1930s-40s as part of a New Deal-era Federal Housing Administration project.
The timeline gives local leaders, the property’s owners and the community time to try and find common ground.
The working group will hold its first meeting on Thursday, Oct. 15. A week later, on Oct. 22 at 5:30 p.m., a community meeting on the property’s future will be held at Central Library.
Karantonis and his Board colleague Maureen Coffey have been designated as community liaisons on the issue.
The working group will also consider the Buckingham Commercial Area, which has about 25 businesses spread over five buildings adjacent to the apartments.
The apartments are located within the Buckingham Local Historic District, which could complicate but ultimately not prevent any large-scale redevelopment of the site.
The matter was touched on briefly at the Sept. 16 meeting of the Historical Affairs and Landmark Review Board (HALRB).
At that meeting, at least one HALRB member wondered publicly if the county government had already formed ideas on what would happen to the large tract.
Rather than responding, historic-preservation staff directed HALRB members to the county’s website, which says the upcoming planning effort “will explore different long-term development options, including keeping it mostly as it is or providing guidance for how it could change in the future.”
What is now Ballston Park was acquired in 1996 by a consortium that includes a private entity and an affiliate of the nonprofit Affordable Homes & Communities (AHC Inc).
Owing to terms of the project’s financing, 233 of the 512 units were and remain income-restricted to households earning 60% or less of the area median income.
That restriction expires on Dec. 31, 2027, but existing tenants will retain certain rights of occupancy for a three-year “decontrol” period concluding at the end of 2030.
The remainder of the units are available for rent by residents of any income. A county fact sheet suggests most households in the market-rate units have incomes less than 80% of the local median.
