The Durham Housing Authority (DHA) broke ground this week on Villages of Hayti, a long-awaited affordable housing project that will include 252 affordable housing units in the historic Black Hayti community.
The site’s redevelopment has been a long time coming, as several speakers acknowledged during a sentimentally charged groundbreaking attended by more than 300 people and lasting more than two hours.
Durham Housing Authority and developers recently broke ground on Villages of Hayti. (Photo: Greg Childress/NC Newsline)Decades of long and sometimes contentious debate over redeveloping the old Fayette Place site made this week’s groundbreaking deeply personal for Black residents old enough to remember Hayti.
“Today is a moment many of us prayed for and never gave up on,” said Brenda Bradsher, who lives in the Grant Street community that includes the Villages of Hayti.
Bradsher, 80, is one of the “Ladies of Grant Street.” Their story of advocacy and persistence in preserving the last surviving block of the Hayti neighborhood is captured in a documentary that premiered last month.
She has lived on Grant Street all of her life and remembers a thriving Black community before urban renewal brought the Durham Freeway to take out large chunks of Hayti in the early 1960s.
In its heyday, the Hayti District in Durham, which includes the Villages of Hayti site, was a bustling hub of commerce and culture and the center of Durham’s Black community. It boasted more than 200 Black-owned businesses, including banks, insurance companies and theaters.
“The whole section was Black-owned, and it was something that we were proud of,” Bradsher told NC Newsline in an interview. “We didn’t have to go downtown for anything. We had everything we wanted in Hayti.”
Bradsher also remembers the early promises of redevelopment that never materialized after Fayetteville Street Apartments was demolished in 2009 after falling into disrepair.
The public housing community was built in the late 1960s to replace residential areas razed to make way for the freeway. In 2007, DHA sold the property to a developer who planned to build student housing (Fayette Place) for N.C. Central University students. The apartments were never built, so in 2017, DHA exercised its options to buy back the property.
“We got tired of it just sitting there,” Bradsher said. “So we started asking DHA to buy it back so something could be done about it.”
At the groundbreaking, Bishop Clarence Laney, senior pastor of Monument Faith Church, a neighborhood church, set the tone for the event.
“Somebody kept the vision alive through decades of neglect and indifference and deference while the rest of downtown boomed and this land set silent,” Laney said. “Well, this morning the silence is over. Today, we do not simply break ground – we fulfill a promise.”
Mayme T. Webb-Bledsoe (Photo: Durham Housing Authority)Mayme Webb-Bledsoe, chair of the housing authority’s board of commissioners, called the groundbreaking historic.
“Today, what we’re witnessing is a moment in history that we can all be proud of,” Webb-Bledsoe said. “This is more than a groundbreaking ceremony; it is a celebration of vision, partnership, perseverance, and community.”
Anthony Snell, the former CEO of the housing authority, used Langston Hughes’ “Harlem” (A Dream Deferred) to frame the moment, offering that the dream of redeveloping the property didn’t “explode,” at least not in a “really disruptive, really negative” sense.
“I would like for us to think about an alternative explosion that’s wrapped around hope, excitement, growth, a seed that has been planted, that comes forth, a community that is reborn because people will not allow that dream to wither away,” said Snell, now a consultant on the project.
The first phase of the Villages of Hayti will include a mix of 81 one-bedroom, 113 two-bedroom, and 58 three-bedroom apartments across nine garden-style walk-up buildings. Twenty-four units are set aside and designed for residents with mobility impairments or for individuals experiencing homelessness.
Outdoor amenities include a 1,700-square-foot playground, shaded seating areas and a covered picnic pavilion.
The development is structured as a 100% Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) development, with all units restricted to households earning between 30% and 80% of area median income. According to Census data, the median income in Durham is approximately $82,300.
Mayor Leonardo Williams (Photo: City of Durham)The $85 million project includes $17 million in funding from the City of Durham. “I just want to say how proud I am to be mayor of a city where we put our values on our sleeves and wear it brightly,” Durham Mayor Leonardo Williams said.
Project partners include DHA and Durham Community Partners, comprised of Harmony Housing Affordable Development, Gilbane Development and F7 Development.
“The Hayti community has such a strong legacy,” said Bobvala Tengen, development director at Gilbane. “There were moments during this history where we thought the best things were behind us … so much of the work that we’ve done today is to ensure that the best days are not behind us.”
Future phases of the redevelopment, according to DHA, will add for-sale townhome ownership opportunities to support generational wealth and long-term neighborhood stability. Multifamily housing, commercial spaces to support local businesses and cultural and community spaces are also planned for future phases of the Villages of Hayti.
Durham is fighting an uphill battle to provide enough affordable housing, particularly for low-income residents. The Triangle Community Foundation reported last year that Durham is short 25,000 housing units for low-income and working-class families.
Voters in Durham approved a $95 million affordable housing bond referendum in 2019 to address housing insecurity and homelessness. The city and DHA were awarded a $40 million federal Choice Neighborhoods Implementation Grant in 2022 to redevelop aging public housing communities.
A redevelopment of public housing takes shape in Durham’s downtown
Meanwhile, a study commissioned by N.C. Chamber Foundation, N.C. Home Builders Association and NC REALTORS® — “2024 Housing Supply Gap Analysis, State of North Carolina” — found an expected gap of 764,000 total units (322,000 rental units and 442,000 units for purchase) across North Carolina.
Gary Brown, vice chancellor and chief of staff at N.C. Central University, said affordable housing is about more than buildings.
“It’s about creating environments where families can grow, where children can dream, where seniors can live with dignity and where communities can remain connected to the rich history and culture that defines them,” Brown said. “And there is, perhaps, no more meaningful place for this work than here in Hayti, a community whose legacy reflects resilience and excellence, entrepreneurship and faith and cultural pride.”
Anita Scott Neville, director of Hayti Reborn, called the Villages of Hayti a major step forward in preserving and restoring the “remaining sacred soil known as Hayti.”
“Many of us have been active in this community before the urban removal, and certainly up until today,” Neville said. “We pray that those who have been granted authority over the redevelopment of this district will be overcome with the charge of accountability and responsibility to the history and heritage of this community.”
Ashanti Brown (Photo: Durham Housing Authority)Hayti Reborn is a Durham-based initiative and coalition focused on preserving the legacy of the historic Hayti district, and preventing displacement and gentrification.
Ashanti Brown, interim CEO of DHA, said she saw quickly upon arriving in Durham how passionate residents are about preserving the legacy of Hayti.
“As many others before me have stated, Durham does not play,” Brown said.
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