The Marietta Housing Authority is moving forward with its plans to relocate all 120 families from the Fort Hill Homes public housing development before demolishing the 1940s-era facility.
While the move, in the works for two years, is a welcome change for some residents, others are fighting to save the development or at least ensure that some type of affordable family housing is built in its place.
"Fort Hill is more than a housing project, it's a community; it's history," said James Grober, a former Marietta Housing Authority employee and past Fort Hill resident.
Grober and a few residents, including tenant association President Carolyn Richardson, have met weekly to seek ways to stop the demolition, even contacting federal officials for assistance.
But the Department of Housing and Urban Development has sided with the housing authority on the demolition plans, and entreaties to federal historic preservation officials have gone unanswered.
The group is considering going to court.
"We're not against improving Marietta, but we want something left of the historical significance for the black community that has lived here," Grober said. "If [Fort Hill] has to be torn down, OK, but we ask that they build some affordable housing apartments in their place."
Plans for the 10 acres that will remain after demolition have not been set, and the economy has made the future even more unclear. The land eventually could be sold to a private developer but will remain open green space in the meantime.
Richardson, an off-and-on Fort Hill resident for most of her life who is now raising four grandchildren in the development, said if the project was replaced by housing it wouldn't hurt as much for those who've lived there for years.
Fort Hill's demolition is part of the MHA's five-year plan to get out of the federal public housing business. Four other developments already have been demolished. Fort Hill, built just off Lemon Street in 1941 in a historically black area, is the oldest and last development in the system.
No deadline has been set for full relocation of the Fort Hill residents, MHA Executive Director Ray Buday said, but most tenants are expected to be out by the end of next month. The agency plans to advertise and select a contractor in August for the expected two months of demolition work.
Buday and the MHA board agree with Grober's group about the development's historical significance. The agency is working with Kennesaw State University to compile a history of the development and of MHA. But there is no legal obligation to preserve the buildings, Buday said.
"MHA will never [again] be involved in the construction of multi-family public housing in which all the housing is affordable," he said. "Any family units that MHA gets involved in will be mixed income."
Many residents have been given public housing vouchers to move into private housing in the county, while senior residents are being moved into MHA's other facilities, including a new high-rise a couple of blocks away.
Twelve-year resident Orsbend Drew, 61, said he is glad to leave.
"I can't speak for everyone else, but I'm ready to go," he said, this week while waiting on moving trucks to relocate him to a house in Austell.
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