Churchill Homes

Churchill Homes is a New Urbanist housing development in Holyoke, Massachusetts.

Background

In the late 1990s the Holyoke Housing Authority (HHA) in Holyoke, MA demolished its Jackson Parkway housing project. In place of the former project the HHA built an affordable New Urbanist development known as Churchill Homes, developed by Community Builders, which was completed in 2000. The site's mixture of incomes is characteristic of its New Urbanist nature: the development has 60 homeownership units and 50 rental units, compared to 219 rental units in Jackson Parkway, and each building has its own private yard.

Design

To make the area appear as a regular neighborhood, the HHA had to replace the "super-block" design of Jackson Parkway, for which there were no through streets and everyone’s mail went to one address. The HHA’s goal for Churchill was that it look like a natural part of the surrounding area. To this end the HHA not only created a normal street grid pattern but also designed the residences to fit with the architecture of the surrounding area. The designs fit neighboring architecture by mimicking their setback requirements, and borrowing their Victorian color schemes and detailing. The private yards, small front setbacks, and common green space in the neighborhood's center draw inspiration from New Urbanist ideas of defensible space, in particular Jane Jacobs’ idea of "eyes on the street." The development has many energy-efficient features, including high performance windows, low-toxicity paints and finishes, pre-cast insulated concrete foundation panels, and highly efficient heating systems.

Public acceptance

The existing presence of affordable housing on the site, along with the presence of many other affordable developments in Holyoke, helped ensure public acceptance of the Churchill development. The HHA in 1996 received a HOPE VI grant from the Federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, which stipulated social requirements for the project in return for easy passage through planning permission processes. The HHA met its requirement to demonstrate community input into the plans by conducting community surveys and charrettes; the plans it submitted to the Planning Board featured approval from the city's police department, fire department, and the city engineer. Although not required by the Hope VI grant, the HHA, and to some extent the UMASS Public Policy program established services in the neighborhood to promote economic self-reliance. The HHA built a community center that serves as the location of programs for computer learning and daycare/after-school, GED, and ESOL.

As a federally-funded program that displaced individuals, Churchill Homes was subject to the federal Uniform Relocation Program, which sets compensation sums for displaced families based partly on the number of rooms in their current residence. To administer the relocation process the HHA formed a subsidiary, Community Supportive Services (CSS), which offered three opportuniteis to former residents of Jackson Park. Residents could either transfer to a different rental unit in existing public housing, receive a Section 8 voucher to live in a place of their choosing, or receive Uniform Relocation Act funds in addition to a Section 8 voucher for the purpose of buying a home. Two years after the project was completed, eight former residents had purchased a home.

The city granted planning permissions, and created a new downtown residential zone, as a regular district as opposed to an overlay, to accommodate the project.

References

• Final Report, 2002. Prepared for Public-Private Partnership for Advancing Housing Technology by Steven Winter Associates.
• Pathways: Changing the Way You Think About and Build Housing. Public-Private Partnership for Advancing Housing Technology.
• Holyoke Housing Authority, Matthew Mainville Hope VI Coordinator interview.
• Community Builders website, http://www.tcbinc.org.