Two of Orlando’s oldest public housing communities might be getting a new look in 2025.
On Tuesday evening, Lift Orlando, a nonprofit developer, in partnership with Orlando Housing Authority and the City of Orlando, held their third meeting with residents and investors to discuss the “comprehensive redevelopment” of West Lakes’ Lorna Doone Apartments and Washington Shores’ Lake Mann Homes.
The goal is to tear these two complexes down and rebuild them better than before, aiming to “improve living conditions.” The project is being funded in part by federal dollars.
HUD’s Choice Neighborhoods program
In 2023, the partnership was awarded a $500,000 grant through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Choice Neighborhoods — a prescriptive two-part program with a number of guidelines, including that the money be used for “distressed” public housing redevelopment. According to developers, rehabilitating the buildings is not a viable option due to their level of deterioration. This is how the project qualifies for federal assistance.
This initial grant comes from the Choice Neighborhoods Planning Grant part of the program and is to be used for funding the two-year planning process. The total cost of this planning phase, however, was reported to be about $1.8 million. At its halfway point now, funds have come from a variety of sources, including the City of Orlando, which contributed $250,000.
Sandy Hostetter, Lift Orlando’s vice president of Asset Development, is at the helm with almost 50 years of combined experience in finance, banking, and affordable housing. She said it was passion for this project which made her take the chance to apply for this grant, knowing most first-time applicants get denied. Hostetter said the team was shocked to have their proposal win on their first try, and she’s determined to help these communities reach their potential.
“These two communities have lacked capital investment for decades. And what we're trying to do is level the playing field. We're trying to bring hundreds of millions of dollars to this community, and that will be transformative. That's our goal,” she said.
The meeting at the L. Claudia Allen Senior Center centered on gathering community concerns through focus workgroups and long conversations, as part of the planning phase, following the project’s first meeting July 31. Over the past year, the project’s team has been able to survey 80% of the residents for feedback and suggestions to plan implementation and logistics.
This history behind these choice communities
Lorna Doone Apartments, a senior public housing neighborhood, was built in the 70s, and Lake Mann Homes, which is mixed-family public housing units, were built in the 50s. According to the grant proposal, these places were in what was “once a thriving Black community until the construction of Central Florida's Interstate 4 tore through.”
On HUD’s website it states that Choice Neighborhoods can help preserve and expand the supply of affordable housing. Orlando’s proposal was selected, among others, from a national pool of applications. It stressed that these communities “were consumed by institutionalized neglect, giving way to systemic disinvestment, injustice and discrimination leading the area to become a pocket of chronic and generational poverty.”
At the meeting, some residents expressed concerns with the plans, saying they fear this will just repeat what they’ve been through many times before -- exclusion and gentrification.
Resident Bernadette Davis-Stuckey, who’s president of the Lake Lorna Doone Home Owners Association, said city and outside investors have come offering progress but have instead left out the community, pricing out and displacing residents.
“We're seeing a lot of investors coming in, buying these homes, and they're jacking up the prices,” she said. “We don't mind growth or new changes because we want to be updated. We want people to come and feel comfortable in our neighborhood. We just want to be included.”
Other voices, primarily local Black and minority business owners and investors, said they wanted to see development that involves their dollars and collaboration.
Hostetter said she resonates with the distrust. She said Lift Orlando is committed to uplifting communities. In the past, the nonprofit included residents in the design and decisions of their new communities and used many local investors and workers when building The Communities of West Lakes, made up of the neighborhoods west of Parramore and east of Washington Shores.
“They have been promised things that never came to fruition. And so, I understand there's the distrust of ‘Who are you? Why are you doing this? Why are you here?’” Hostetter said. “It takes a long time to build trust, and I hope today that the (West Lakes) residents would tell you, we do what we say we're going to do. This really is resident-led.”
The community’s role will be essential
According to Hostetter, the concerns about local investments are also coming in somehow prematurely. The project is still in its early planning stages.
To complete HUD’s two-step program, Lift Orlando and the Orlando Housing Authority must complete and submit their “Transformation Plan” to HUD by March 2025 to apply and be eligible for the second part, HUD’s Choice Neighborhoods Implementation Grant. This part awards up to $50 million for implementation.
But Hostetter said that to accomplish everything that's required to complete the vision, investments need to range closer to $200 million.
“This means we have to come up with the other $150 million. It's a big lift,” she said. “Tax credits, financing, the city, the state — we will be pulling every lever we can.”
The project aims to build an additional 315 units, including mixed-income housing. Ultimately, the communities will end up with the same number of public housing units, plus some affordable housing and market rate units. Hostetter said a diversity of income sources is important to the community’s economic health.
Jason Henry, the district director for Congressman Maxwell Frost, said the turnout at the meetings shows the community is enthusiastic and engaged.
There were more than 50 people at the event Tuesday which broke into focus groups to discuss how the project should work in order to be in compliance with HUD guidelines regarding $100,000 of the grant, which are to be spent on what the agency calls “Early Action Activities.” These are anything that will enhance or accelerate the transformation of the neighborhood.
Early Action Activities must: engage the community, foster social cohesion, and be responsive to the neighborhoods’ needs.
“I think whenever you see folks from the community that are disengaged, but specifically disengaged on an issue like housing, it's really important that the community coming together ensures that the residents of the community are going to be taken care of. There's a conversation about health and wellness, there's a conversation about education, a conversation about traffic, infrastructure. So, this really is a holistic approach to housing,” Henry said.
Trusting, dreaming big, and hoping for the best
Lift Orlando reports surveying more than 80% of public housing authority residents and 20% of the community at large. The data collected is being shared with planners, including residents, to inform the development.
“What we love about this grant is that it is driven 100% by the residents. Now, that's not to say that everything on their wishlist we're going to be able to accomplish, but everything that is feasibly possible we are trying to accomplish. So we've told them to dream big, and we will do everything we can to deliver big so that the things they find to be most critical get done,” Hostetter said.
According to Hostetter, developers are doing “everything they can” not to inconvenience residents, but some people are worried about temporarily displacing senior tenants at Lorna Doone, some of whom have mobility issues, medical needs, and fixed incomes, while the building is taking place.
OHA CEO Vivian Bryant said the agency will help relocate current residents and is permitted to offer them first dibs to move back in once the project is completed, assuming they still qualify for public housing then and want to return.
Bryant said she did not yet know the specifics on how this process would take place.
Lillian Hernández Caraballo is a Report for America corps member.
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