The development of the Lee Road Senior building will be the catalyst, along with its sister-site, Miles Pointe, that will bring new life to this community. Both buildings will feature innovative design features that will compliment the neighborhood.

By JAMES W. WADE III

Staff Reporter

Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority (CMHA) broke ground for a new senior building located at Lee Rd. and Miles Ave. This new senior building situated in Ward 1 of District 4, is home to a significant population of individuals, aged 55 and older who are seeking alternative forms of housing that will enable them to re-main in their current neighborhood.

According to the Lee-Miles Neighborhood Plan Summary (NSP) from the City Planning Commission of Cleveland, over 90 percent of the housing in the Lee-Miles District are single-family homes, compared with 53 percent city-wide leaving residents with limited housing options.

In order to meet the needs of the Lee-Miles community, CMHA, Union Miles Development Corporation, and Harvard Community Service Center all gave input developing a 40-unit senior building that will serve this aging population, using NSP2 financing.

The development will be comprised of 40 affordable one and two-bedroom units and will feature amenities like ample parking, onsite laundry, a community room, exercise area and warming kitchen.

Currently, the plan is to offer 10 two-bedroom units and 30 one-bedroom units that will range from 780 sq. ft to 1000 sq. ft. Although there will be 12 dedicated Uniform Federal Accessibility Standards (UFAS) units and 3 dedicated audio-visual units, every unit in the facility will be adaptable to UFAS compliant standards.

CMHA CEO Jeff Patterson and Board Chair Ronald V. Johnson both gave welcome to everyone who came out to support the project in Ward 1. State Sen. Nina Turner thanked current Councilman Terrell Pruitt for keeping the vision of this project alive.

Doug Shelby, Cleveland Field Office Director, HUD stood in for Antonio Riley, Midwest Regional Administrator, HUD who was suppose to be the Keynote speak. Due to weather Riley could not connect with his flights.

The development of the Lee Road Senior building will be the catalyst, along with its sister-site, Miles Pointe, that will bring new life to this community. Both buildings will feature innovative design features that will compliment the neighborhood.

Both buildings will occupy vacancies on major streets (Lee and Miles). Most importantly both buildings will pro-vide new housing options to this community thereby meeting the City Planning Commission of Cleveland’s goals of improving the quality of housing, reducing vacancies and developing housing that is connected to the broader community.

CMHA who seem to be moving in the right direction under the new leadership has been chosen as a winner of two prestigious National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials (NAHRO) Awards of Excellence for its Ohio City Urban Farm Initiative and establishing an Automated Income Verification Process. CHMA was the only entity to receive two awards.

CMHA’s new headquarters on Kinsman Ave. shows their commitment to the community. By utilizing community partnerships, CMHA converted a six acre abandoned lot behind a 500-unit public housing complex, into an urban farm and employed refugees, public housing residents, and low-income members of the community to tend to the farm.

The Ohio City Farm is the largest contiguous urban farm land in the United States created by repurposing “unusable” land into a viable and productive farm overlooking the city.