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Fairfax to spend $100M on apartment complex
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Fairfax (Map, News) - A four-decade-old apartment complex in Annandale will become Fairfax County’s latest and most expensive purchase in its program to preserve affordable housing, the county announced this week.
Housing officials plan to ink a $107.5 million deal to buy the 672-unit Wedgewood Apartments located off Heritage Drive, which it will hold at lower rent for families with low and moderate incomes. The purchase will be funded largely through the county’s allocation of one penny of its real estate tax to the affordable-housing program.
“What would have happened with this property, had we not acquired it, it would have had higher leasing rates, or it would have been converted to condominiums, and you in essence lose it as affordable housing,” said County Executive Anthony Griffin. “Our goal is to prevent that kind of thing from occurring, so we have a more balanced housing market.”
Since the county began the program in 2004, it has bought or helped nonprofit housing groups to buy 2,200 units, according to housing department spokeswoman Kristina Norvell.
But while the program has protected those dwellings in a once-skyrocketing housing market, only a few
dozen families not already living in one of the units have been taken off waiting lists. As of June, 46
families had moved off the lists, Norvell said.
The program has also endured criticism for the high-income limits for some of the units, which can run as high as 120 percent of the area’s $100,000 median household income, or AMI. The Wedgewood units will be available to families making about 65 percent of the AMI.
wflook@dcexaminer.com
Comments from Examiner Readers
10:33 AM MST on Tue., Aug. 5, 2008 re: "Fairfax Co. threatens to evict non-responsive tenants"
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7:39 AM MST on Thu., Oct. 18, 2007
re: "Fairfax to spend $100M on apartment complex"
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Examiner Reader said:
Is this a "light of day" step? Are we subsidizing illegals in these dwellings? Hold the CHAIRMAN accountable for his POLITICAL actions with tax payer's money.
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Examiner Reader said:
There are better ways to provide funds to county employees to help them with the "high" cost of living in Fairfax County. Just look into the details of this expensive, to the tax payer, project. (Lost Real Estate Taxes and sweetheart deals.) The tax payers in Fairfax County must wake up and see where the "one penny" Real Estate taxes allocated to affotdable housing is really going. These DEALS should see the "light of day" in the tax payers eyes.
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Examiner Reader said:
Why is Connolly using taxpayer money to pay double the assessed value for this apartment complex? This deserves a follow up story. Wouldn't it be cheaper to build new units on County owned property? Who owns this complex now and who are they related to? Are County assessments that far off?
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