"Midway through his Power Point presentation to City Council on Monday, May 6, Satyendra Huja noticed a flock of high school kids shuffling for the door. 'I guess I'm losing my audience,' he said.

Huja, the City director of strategic planning, reported to Council on Charlottesville's housing trends and construction forecasts. Huja's pie charts didn't grab the teenagers, but the City's response to skyrocketing housing demand may determine whether today's high school students will have homes to buy or rent in Charlottesville when theyre adults. Over the past 10 years, the City has been trying to provide moderate-income housing to stem the flight of middle-class residents into Albemarle County.

'One of the problems we began to see in the in the 1990s was a lot of affordable housing on the lower end and a fair bit of housing on the upper end and nothing in the middle,' Councilor David Toscano told C-Ville in April. He said the City has been trying to create a 'more diversified housing base so that people whose incomes rise can stay in the City and find a house that they can buy and stay in.'

But in the past decade, Charlottesville's housing production has been limited, Huja reported. Between 1991 and 2001, 487 single-family or duplex units were constructed in the City, while 395 multi-family units were built. The most fervent construction occurred last year, when 152 new units went up - 49 percent were valued at or below $90,000, 43 percent between $90,000 and $150,000 and 8 percent above $150,000.

In the next 10 years, Huja says, housing will have to grow three times faster than it did in the '90s. From 2000 to 2010, Huja's report predicts, between 1,595 and 1,994 new units will have to be built to accommodate Charlottesvilles demand for housing. The new units will be almost evenly divided among single-family homes, duplexes and multi-family units, says Huja.

The City hopes to direct most of the new housing construction into commercial 'corridors,' including Emmet Street, West Main Street, Cherry Avenue, Fifth Street and Monticello Avenue. According to Huja's report, 60 percent of the single-family attached homes and 90 percent of the multifamily units will be directed into the commercial corridors.

'People mention to me that there's no vacant land in Charlottesville,' Huja told council. 'I would disagree with that. There are housing opportunities.' His report specifically cited large tracts of vacant land in southwest Charlottesville.

As Toscano says, more middle-income people may be deciding to stay in Charlottesville. But as property values continue climbing, Council is worried that wealthy landlords will buy too many of the City's affordable homes and fatten their pockets with rent checks.

'I'd like to see some statistics on what's happening with the conversion of owner housing to rental,' said Councilor Maurice Cox. 'We know anecdotally that is very much going on, especially around the University'

Last year, City property values grew by an average of 10 percent, with some neighborhoods growing by as much as 17 percent. Huja says property values increased most in Meadowbrook Hills, Carlton/Belmont, Greenleaf Terrace/Rose Hill/Rugby Hills; the lowest growth was in Orangedale, Fifeville, and the 10th and Page neighborhoods.

In the next five years, City Council will spend a projected $1.2 million on capital improvements for housing initiatives. Council is considering several programs to provide more housing, but, 'given the limited resources the City Council will have to decide which initiative it would like to pursue in the coming year,' according to Huja's report.

One plan calls for the City - in partnership with a non-profit housing organization, to purchase homes in 'distressed' neighborhoods like Prospect Avenue and 10th and Page. The homes would be rehabilitated and sold for home ownership. Last year, 18 people purchased homes with the help from the City and the Piedmont Housing Alliance....

Council may also decide to spend more money repairing the 20 or so vacant, boarded-up homes around Charlottesville. The City could continue to extend tax credits to property owners who rehabilitate residential property, but Huja's report recommends reviewing the exceptions granted so far, to see if tax abatement is working. As Councilor Meredith Richards sees it, the program has put 'City tax money into the hands of owners who were exploiting low-income people.'

Indeed, low-income housing remains a need in the City, even as it addresses the middle-income housing crisis, as newly re-elected Mayor Blake Caravati said throughout his campaign.

'T'here's a paucity of programs from low-income rental rehabilitation,' Caravati said after Huja's presentation last week. 'The availability of low-income housing isn't doing so well, and it's only going to get worse.'" (John Borgmeyer, C-Ville Weekly, May 14, 2002)