The last wall blocking construction of affordable single-family homes in the Old Cherry Street neighborhood fell last night.
The Winston-Salem City Council voted unanimously to pay $360,000 to prepare lots on North Cherry Street and Garfield Avenue for the construction of new Habitat for Humanity homes.
The money will come from city funds budgeted for housing development.
The decision means that a 2003 city plan to renovate and improve North Cherry Street will take another step forward.
The neighborhood, which surrounds Kimberly Park Elementary School, had deteriorated from a thriving community of black business owners and Kimberly Park teachers into drug- and crime-ridden streets.
In 2003, the city authorized $1.7 million to revitalize the neighborhood.
The city used that money to buy houses, apartment buildings and vacant lots and to tear down buildings that inspectors did not think could be renovated. The city moved some residents out of the neighborhood and planned from the start to build new homes.
But fights over the historic value of some homes in the neighborhood -- and whether that historic value meant more than safe housing -- stalled plans. Those issues have since been resolved, with some historic homes remaining and others having been demolished.
Sylvia Oberle, the executive director of Forsyth County Habitat for Humanity, said that some historians think that the Old Cherry Street Historic District is one of the last remaining neighborhoods started by black working-class people. The district was added in 2004 to the National Register of Historic Places.
Oberle said that Habitat became interested in the neighborhood because it is close to Joel Coliseum and University Parkway, as well as to other Habitat neighborhoods. The neighborhood, she said, has a school, parks, churches and a health center -- "everything going for it that a neighborhood needs except decent and affordable housing."
Habitat for Humanity got involved in the neighborhood in 2006.
The nonprofit group has been steadily buying homes and vacant land to make way for new homes.
Oberle said that Habitat plans to build 12 or 13 homes by the end of 2009.
Habitat has collected more than $800,000 from house sponsors, grants and other sources.
The $360,000 allocated by the city council last night will pay for grading and other site-preparation work.
Council member Nelson L. Malloy Jr., who represents the North Ward, said he was glad the city was "finally able to put some funds in" to build affordable homes in the Old Cherry neighborhood.
"It's been a long haul to get to this point," Malloy said.
■ Laura Graff can be reached at 727-7279 or at lgraff@wjournal.com.
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