Скачать или смотреть Galveston breaks ground on a new vision of public housing 13 years after Ike

Galveston breaks ground on a new vision of public housing 13 years after Ike

ICYMI: Due to lingering signal issues from this week's Facebook outage, Tuesday's ground-breaking for the $111 million Oleanders at Broadway mixed-income complex was missed by many viewers. This is a replay of that event.

The final phase of affordable mix-income housing destroyed by Ike breaks ground in Galveston

After 12 years of political fights, five mayors and more than five tropical storms and hurricanes later, the Oleanders are set to rise again at the corner of Broadway and 53rd Street in Galveston.

Galveston’s final phase of replacing hundreds of public housing wiped out by Hurricane Ike 13 years ago got its formal welcome on Tuesday (10/5/2021).

The Oleanders at Broadway is an $111 million with 348 units of mixed-income housing.

The island’s mayor said it is more than that, it is “workforce housing,” that will help those who struggle to keep up with Galveston’s ever-skyrocketing rental prices to find affordable and market-based housing on the island.

Galveston Mayor Craig Brown said the project - along with its already constructed sister projects The Cedars at Carver Park and The Villas on the Strand in Galveston - help make living on the island affordable for critical workforce categories such as service industry workers for hotels and restaurants as well as teachers, police and fire personnel as well as those who work within the medical complex at UTMB Health.

Betty Massey, the vice-chair of the Galveston Houston Authority Board of Commissioners said the construction fulfills a promise and moral pledge made 12 years ago that many who were forced to leave Galveston after Ike’s devastation.

The developer of the project says the Oleanders at Broadway will serve as a national leader in diverse and climate change-resistant housing.

“It’s been thirteen years since Hurricane Ike devastated Galveston,” said Richard Baron, chairman of McCormack Baron Salazar. “The destruction wrought by Ike was particularly devastating for public housing families.

“That’s why it is important to begin a third development with a new type of green design and construction that will be more resilient to hurricanes and other weather events, and more equitable for the residents who live in Galveston. The entire design team has embraced the Oleanders design, and we appreciate the fact that the City of Galveston engineering staff has endorsed it as the “Green” standard for the island’s future development.”

Baron, who founded McCormack Baron Salazar 50 years ago, said the concept of public housing needed to change.

Public housing became a hot bed of troubled behaviour and did little to enhance the quality of life of residents as well as those who lived and worked in the communities around those complexes.

That’s why he formed his company, to change the dynamic, he said. That mix-income, a combination of subsidized rent along with market-value rental charges, an in-house, non-profit that works with residents to find health care, education services, social services and more along with nice amenities - including resort-style pools, workout centers and park space, would dispel the images of crime-ridden and rundown public housing projects of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.

It’s been an admittedly tough sell, Baron acknowledged, but a mission-focused calling that he believes has already convinced even many of the doubters to see such projects in a different light.

Set to open for leases in 2023 the Oleanders at Broadway will also boast a different kind of storm-resistant construction.

That includes large storage areas under the structure that will hold stormwater during storms.

When the system can take it releases that water into the storm drain system

The property will also have porous surfaces that will direct stormwater to the storage beneath.

William Ansell, chair of the GHA Board of Commissioners, said the next step in replacing what was lost to Ike will be 26 scattered mix-income housing sites throughout Galveston. Those projects, Massey said, are slated to begin in the first part of 2022.