What happened to Tidewater Gardens?
Graph from the Expert Report of Dr. John C. Finn – see Resources below for full document
Tidewater Gardens was a 618-unit public housing community located in the St. Paul’s Quadrant of Norfolk, which is also home to Calvert Square (318 units) and Youngs Terrace (746 units). Built as part of the country’s first forays into public housing, these communities, built in the early 1950s, had fallen into disrepair through congressional underfunding and neglect by the NRHA, and were facing the pressure of gentrification as downtown Norfolk revitalized itself.
Legal Aid Society of Eastern Virginia had long served the community of Tidewater Gardens, when in 2017, the community began resisting a demolition and redevelopment plan offered by Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority and the City of Norfolk that did not sufficiently consider them.
Legal Aid partnered with local residents and activists with New Virginia Majority to help residents raise their voices to the Housing Authority and to City Hall. Residents spoke out at City Council meetings, at Housing Authority events, and engaged in peaceful protest. Ultimately, with the help of Legal Aid, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under the Law, and Hogan Lovells, residents and activists were able to file suit in January 2020 to challenge the redevelopment plan. The plan proposed demolishing 618 units that housed approximately 1,600 people and rebuilding only 221 on-site units. The remaining displaced residents would be provided with Housing Choice Vouchers to relocate outside of Norfolk’s revitalizing core. Residents would instead be forced to relocate into other segregated and impoverished neighborhoods in Norfolk.
The lawsuit ultimately settled. The City and Housing Authority agreed to build more hard replacement units in and adjacent to the former Tidewater Gardens site, provide important enhancements and protections for former Tidewater Gardens residents in the Housing Choice Voucher program, increase protections against Source of Income discrimination, as well as giving residents of Tidewater Gardens preferences at other affordable housing communities in Norfolk, such as Market Heights.
Importantly, the Settlement Agreement also provided some protections for residents of Calvert Square and Young Terrace, requiring that the City and Housing Authority study the effects of any such redevelopment plan on segregation in Norfolk if the communities were slated for demolition and redevelopment.
Residents in these communities deserve to live in conditions better than those they currently find themselves in. But any demolition and redevelopment plan must also ensure that these residents are able to relocate into thriving communities and, if they so choose, return once the redevelopment has been completed. Given Norfolk’s limited housing stock, discrimination against voucher holders, and other problems with NRHA’s Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher Program, simply providing more Housing Choice Vouchers will not solve the problem. It is LASEV’s position that all demolished public housing units should be replaced with another subsidized unit, i.e., a 1:1 replacement.
As the Housing Authority and City again turn towards St. Paul’s with an eye towards gentrification, our commitment to the families living in the remaining public housing communities is strong and unshakeable.
Resources and Additional Reading
Virginian-Pilot: NRHA moves forward with public housing redevelopment plans – February 2025