Westview Village is an affordable housing development nestled between rolling hills dotted with avocado orchards and a mixed residential/industrial area in Ventura, California. The site is being transformed using the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) program.
The development is the result of a visionary partnership between the Housing Authority of the City of San Buenaventura (HACSB) and BRIDGE Housing Corporation utilizing RAD. The partnership is leveraging the capital available through RAD along with Westview Village’s existing resources — its setting, its land, and the ideas and energy of its residents — to create a development that serves the health and well-being of its entire community and beyond.
ONCE UPON A TIME
The original Westview Village was Ventura’s first public housing development. The first 100 units were built in 1952, and 80 more were added in 1961. With its graceful front lawns, a single-story layout, and contemporary floor plans, Westview appealed to post-WWII households. The development was fully occupied decade after decade. But by the mid-2010s, the cinder-block buildings were rapidly deteriorating, and their efficiency floor plans were ill-suited to modern family structures. The low-density site plan also no longer aligned with increasing land values that favored higher residential densities.
Facing a seven-year waiting list, and seeking to maximize the amount of affordable housing available to the public on this site, HACSB turned to RAD to redevelop Westview Village.
Phase I of Westview Village is now complete and fully occupied. When all four phases are completed, there will be 320 brand-new units where there were once 180. The redevelopment has also added community centers, gardens, and parks.
This was HACSB’s first family housing development using RAD, but Chief Executive Officer Denise Wise and her team knew in advance that proactive outreach and communication would be important. “We began a two-year process of community engagement and resident engagement before we even put one shovel in the ground,” said Wise.
Community engagement had two goals, said Wise. “We really wanted to make sure that we had community buy-in, that our neighbors knew what we were doing, but more importantly, that our residents were comfortable in what we were doing. At the time this project came into play, there were all kinds of rumors about RAD nationwide — that we were going to increase their rent, that we were going to kick them out, that we were privatizing because we were going to bring in higher-income families.”
Many Westview Village residents remember these rumors, but the HACSB’s engagement efforts brought them into the project. They felt like their needs were considered, and they also felt included as partners in the design process.
Resident Katherine Simonson is a single mother of two who serves on Westview Village’s Resident Advisory Council. An active member of the community today, she felt like a genuine partner in the redevelopment planning process. She attended monthly meetings and took advantage of a 24/7 idea board that allowed the residents to present their opinions, wants, and wishes outside the formal meeting structure.
She remembers the old buildings fondly, but she also remembers mold and pests. She credits the new buildings and the community’s design with her own improved health. Able to move into the workforce, she now works at EPIC, an after-school youth program co-located at Westview Village.
In videos above and below, Katherine discusses the support residents received for relocation from old home to new; and describes the new community that emerged after the transition to RAD.
Griselda Vazquez also serves with Katherine on the Resident Advisory Council. She is thrilled to show off every room of her apartment — the bedrooms, the kitchen, the bathrooms, the efficient in-unit electric washer and dryer, and the living room on the ground floor with its wide doors that open to a patio. It’s a charming space that, she says, is perfect for watching the rare but dramatic storms in this part of the world.
At first Griselda was one of those who was apprehensive when she heard about the renovation. New buildings, in her experience, always meant higher rent. “We had a lot of questions,” she said, but the development team was “very patient.” The residents were worried about cost, about the amenities, and the way it all would work. Their questions were answered every step of the way.
In addition to the needs of residents and neighbors, Westview Village was planned to meet the needs of its larger environment.
Karen Flock, the HACSB deputy director for real estate development, credits their former colleague Dan Hardy for both the intensive community engagement process and its overall environmental sensibility.
“He really pushed the green aspects,” she said, referring to recycled laundry greywater used to water the landscaping, a solar system, and other efficiencies that earned the development the coveted Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design – Neighborhood Designation (LEED-ND) platinum status.
Wise added, “We wanted to ‘honor the dirt.’” The development ultimately did so by delivering a design that promotes healthy eating and active living with four community centers, community gardens, and two acres for public recreation.
Sonja Flores, Project Manager for the next 105 units of family housing now under construction, reiterated how being good stewards of the land is being put into practice every day on the job site. For example, the design preserved the development’s old trees whenever possible, but when there were trees that could not be kept in place as units were demolished for Phase III, they were milled and repurposed into benches and other features that will be enjoyed by generations of residents.
Denise Wise, HACLA Executive Director, discusses some of the green features of Westview Village, and how those will improve the longevity and sustainability of the development as well as the living environment for generations of residents. The aerial footage begins in a strawberry patch of the community garden and rises above Phase I, circling through a Phase III still under construction.
Like other residents, José Flores, a 20-year resident of Westview Village, felt some trepidation when he heard about the plans to redevelop the home he had lived in for more than a decade. Living with a disability, his worries surrounded the Section 8 designation of the new and old development and also a misconception that larger numbers of apartments would bring crime. But he says that the rumors and misconceptions were addressed head-on by the housing authority.
They kept us informed “every step of the way,” he said.
José says the biggest improvement for his six-member family was a second bathroom, but he also lauded the solar system and its potential for offsetting energy costs, drought-resistant landscaping, and the community gardens.
June Northrup, another Phase I resident, was also an engaged contributor in the community planning conversations. As someone who lives with cerebral palsy, the ground-level design of the original buildings worked for her, and in her brand-new ground-level apartment, she says that the developers listened to her needs. Her old home was one of those first demolished — which meant she and her daughter moved offsite to wait for their new apartment, to subsidized housing coordinated for her by the development.
June was raised in public housing in Buffalo, New York. Westview Village is a stark contrast to those days. “I just like the fact that I can have my own quiet little life,” she says. In the old Westview Village, she says, “there were kids around, but there wasn't much room for them to run around and play. [Now] they have nice playthings here, the whole bit.”
“Look at what they built!" she adds. "I mean, this is not just an apartment. It's a community.”
The Westview Village development team created a space to listen to the residents, and together they created an environment that worked for the residents.
One such conversation was about community laundry rooms versus in-unit washer and dryer hookups. The designs initially left machines out of units for sustainability reasons, but residents spoke up and the development team listened. Units were reconfigured to accommodate the side-by-side washers and dryers many residents had been accustomed to having for years.
The machines at Westview Village are electric, however, due to environmental considerations. All decisions have been made with care. In addition to LEED platinum status, according to architect Kara Davis of the RRM Design Group, the team hopes to make Phase III “net zero,” meaning its energy consumption would be the same or less than its energy generation.
In the below and above videos, resident Celia Zavala describes how the housing authority communicated and collaborated with residents to design the new community, and how the RAD improvement impacted the community's relationship with its neighbors.
The results of the collaboration between residents and HACSB are visible everywhere. Residents did not want to give up independent front-door access to their homes. This feedback, ultimately, would result in a multi-level townhouse environment where there is a sense of open space despite the increased density.
Visitors to Westview Village are struck by the dynamic, playful architecture which results in neighbors greeting one another on paths through common spaces, or visiting on shared stoops and park benches.
All the carefully gathered input — from residents, from architects, and from the development’s seasoned developers — has produced a secure and intimate sense of community among people of many backgrounds and all generations. All indications suggest this will continue as three more phases of responsibly built housing come online.
What is RAD?
The Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) is a program of the Office of Recapitalization in the Office of Multifamily Housing Programs at HUD. Authorized in 2011, RAD allows public housing agencies and owners of other HUD-assisted properties to convert units from their original sources of HUD financing to project-based Section 8 contracts. These new contracts provide a more reliable source of operating subsidy that enables property owners to leverage private and public capital, such as debt and equity, to finance new construction and/or rehabilitation of rental housing. Meanwhile, residents benefit from consultation prior to conversion, have a right to return after any construction, and maintain ongoing rights guaranteeing the affordability of the housing.
Credits:
All photos by Scott Chamberlin on behalf of the Cloudburst Group.