Fayetteville, located on North Carolina's sandhills region, has an economy and social life dominated by the U.S. Army's Fort Bragg and Pope Air Force Base. As the urban heart of Cumberland County, the city is also the regional shopping, commercial, finance, institutional, and governmental center for a metropolitan area of more than 287,000 people. The city itself has a population of 80,000 people and is the fourth largest metropolitan area in the State.
In its Consolidated Plan, Fayetteville describes a 5-year strategy for addressing its housing and community development needs and priorities. For the first year of the plan, the city has requested $1.2 million in Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funds, and $517,000 in HOME Investment Partnership Program (HOME) funding. This money will be used to finance 13 housing, community development, and service activities planned for Fiscal Year 1995.
Fayetteville established a Consolidated Plan Steering Committee, consisting of representatives from human services agencies, neighborhood groups, and Cumberland County. The committee met three times during the planning stage, with the first meeting held on January 24, 1995.
Two public hearings to discuss the Consolidated Plan in a public forum were advertised in a local newspaper and then held on February 7 and 8, 1995. Mailed responses were also solicited. The staff of the Fayetteville Redevelopment Commission advertised and held another public hearing on March 14, 1995.
After a 30-day public review and comment period, a final hearing was held on April 17, 1995 before the City Council to consider the plan recommendations made by the Redevelopment Commission.
Fayetteville is a military town with an economy anchored by the $1.2 billion generated from Fort Bragg and Pope Air Force Base each year. To the casual observer, the local economy seems dependent on used car lots, surplus stores, and the adult entertainment needs of the modern soldier, but the general economy is actually more diverse. Major employers include Kelly-Springfield Tire Co., Black & Decker, Purolater Products, DuPont, Fasco Industries, and Cutler-Hammer. Four large medical facilities, including a Veteran's Administration Medical Center and Womack Army Medical Center, employ nearly 5,000 workers.
Although Fayetteville's economy has improved in recent years, the city's unemployment rate as of December 1994 was 8.6 percent, compared to 3.5 percent for the region and 2.9 percent for the State.
The overall median family income (MFI) is still the second lowest of North Carolina's 12 metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs). The 1995 MFI for the Fayetteville area is estimated to be $31,500, well below the MFI's of $48,000 in Raleigh-Durham and $41,700 in Charlotte. In 1990 Fayetteville had 29,611 households, 38 percent of which had annual incomes of 80 percent or less of MFI. Census data show the following levels of low- and moderate-income households:
Racial and/or ethnic populations among Fayetteville's 75,695 residents, reported by the 1990 census, include:
Population growth patterns established in the 1980s are expected to continue through the 1990s. Despite the growing numbers of most racial and ethnic populations, the proportion of whites and non-whites in Fayetteville has remained fairly constant at about 57 percent and 42 percent, respectively. The number of Hispanics is gradually increasing.
Low- and moderate-income households in Fayetteville are experiencing housing problems that include overcrowding, substandard housing units, and unaffordable housing.
In 1990 the number of housing units available year-round totalled 31,712. Of those, 29,639 were occupied -- 13,585 by renters and 16,054 by owners. The 2,073 vacant units included 977 for rent and 348 for sale.
Since 1990 more new housing units have been built, and housing costs have increased. Between 1989 and 1994, the average sales price of existing homes increased almost 21 percent, from $68,850 to $83,067. During the same time, prices of newly constructed homes rose about 11 percent, from $85,132 to an average of $94,121.
About one-quarter of Fayetteville's 31,712 housing units were estimated to be physically substandard in 1990. Of these 7,928 housing units, 3,250 (10 percent of all housing units) were rated as having serious deficiencies.
Housing is affordable when a household has to spend no more than 30 percent of its income for it. In 1990 the MFI in Fayetteville was $27,966; and the mean value of a house was $85,000; and mean rent was $500 to $650 per month. Using the above formula, housing costs should be about $700 a month.
Fayetteville's 1990 MFI would be sufficient to cover most rents. For a home valued at $85,000, however, the monthly payment on a 30-year, 10-percent mortgage, plus $75 for taxes and insurance, would be $821 a month, which is not affordable for households with incomes at or below the MFI.
A large proportion of lower income households pay more than 30 percent of their gross income for their housing, including utilities. Some pay more than 50 percent of their income for housing expenses.
The 1990 census reported 102 homeless persons in Fayetteville, 80 in shelters and 22 visible on the street. Many consider this figure lower than the actual number.
In July 1993 the Fayetteville Police Department initiated a homeless project with an officer assigned to the program full time. The project has helped many homeless persons and families obtain shelter, clothing, food, medical assistance, and jobs. The officer on this project, who deals routinely with street people, reports that a fair estimate of the number of unsheltered homeless persons would be 240 at any one time.
A profile of the city's homeless based upon his observations and reports from shelters would show 383 homeless persons, 143 in emergency shelters, and 240 remaining unsheltered. The total includes 56 persons in 16 families with children, and 53 youth (17 years of age or younger) and 274 adults who are not in families. Eight of these families with 32 members have remained unsheltered, as have 20 youth and 188 individual adults. The rest have been served by emergency shelter housing.
Subpopulations of the homeless with special needs are as follows:
Only 1 of the 12 shelters in Cumberland County meets HUD's definition of an emergency shelter. The county's total capacity is 143 persons, with only 26 spaces available to women. Of the three facilities that will take women, only one will take women and children. The county's runaway youth program provides shelter only for children and teens. Thus, the main shelter options are: men only, women but no children, and children but no adults. This system encourages the breaking up of already fragile families. There is a need for emergency shelters that will accept families, especially women with children.
The Fayetteville Metropolitan Housing Authority in 1995 has a stock of 1,042 public housing units in 14 projects and at 30 scattered-site locations. The authority also administers a Section 8 rental assistance program with 1,647 certificates and vouchers. A waiting list for public housing has 1,700 applications and about 700 for Section 8 assistance (86 percent of which are for 2-bedroom units).
The application backlog suggests that 2,400 additional assisted units are needed. However, the housing authority does not anticipate more units becoming available over the next few years.
Older public housing projects, some of which were built in the 1940s and early-1950s, need rehabilitating. Comprehensive improvement grants from HUD for Fiscal Years 1992 through 1995 will provide more than $6.8 million for modernization.
Other public housing needs include improving the neighborhoods around many of the authority's projects. These are older, deteriorating residential areas subject to a variety of problems, including crime and drugs.
Examples of housing opportunities are the North Carolina Indian Housing Authority, which has 92 relatively new units of assisted housing in the Fayetteville area, and two projects of Section 202 housing for the elderly developed by church groups.
The cost of land and land improvements is a major concern in developing housing. Such costs can be affected by zoning, subdivision requirements, and other land use regulations. Lowering zoning and subdivision standards may produce incentives for developers to build affordable housing.
The city of Fayetteville enforces zoning and subdivision controls through its own Inspections Department. Generally, the enforcement of these ordinances is not perceived as prohibitive by the general building community. The city has some incentives to encourage lower costs for land and land improvements. Possible incentives to make housing more affordable include allowing smaller lots or modifying street paving widths or drainage requirements.
For individual potential homebuyers, additional barriers include poor credit histories, insufficient funds for downpayments, and an inability to afford monthly mortgage payments.
An overwhelming part of Fayetteville's housing stock may have lead-based paint hazards. According to the 1990 census, 24,144 (76 percent) of the city's 31,712 residential units were built before the ban on lead-based paints. From January 1993 to June 1994, North Carolina's Environmental Health Services Division screened children between the ages of 6 months and 5 years. Of the 3,219 screened in Cumberland County, 647 (20 percent) had elevated levels of lead. Lead-based paint, especially in older housing units, is a health factor to consider in Fayetteville and surrounding Cumberland County.
There are also housing and supportive needs for the elderly; mentally disabled, mentally ill, and physically disabled persons; substance abusers; and victims of domestic violence. The needs of each group are similar for affordable and accessible housing but each requires additional support services.
Nonhousing community development needs include:
Fayetteville has a multilayered set of housing, community development, and neighborhood needs that affects all households, regardless of income, race, family status or size, or geographic concentrations. However, census and other data, as well as field inspections, show that certain areas and neighborhoods have lost much of their capacity to function as viable and safe living environments. The incapacitating factors include:
Part of the city's overall 5-year strategy is to focus a variety of programs and service activities on four neighborhood capacity building areas (NCBAs) to address these problems.
Priority housing objectives include:
For homelessness, the priorities involve:
For community development, priority objectives include:
Economic development priorities are to:
The financial resources to carry out the 5-year plan include CDBG and HOME funds. The city anticipates that similar levels of HUD community development and housing funds will be available during the remaining 4 years of the 5-year plan.
Fayetteville also has an array of organizational resources that contribute positively to the city's community development efforts. A major resource is the Fayetteville Affordable Housing Coalition -- a broad-based group including: mortgage lenders, nonprofit entities, churches, the real estate community, local governments, the area chapter of Habitat for Humanity, the Police Department's Homeless Project, and the "A Complete Fayetteville" planning project.
Having been a CDBG entitlement city for many years, Fayetteville has a well-established structure for program implementation. The city works with many local groups almost daily. The Community Development and Housing Division (part of the city's Department of Neighborhood Services) will be the primary agency for the coordination and implementation of the Consolidated Plan.
For the program year 1995-1996, Fayetteville plans to use its $1.7 million of CDBG and HOME funds for 13 activities to address specific housing, community development, and human services needs.
For housing the allocation is $982,447, including:
For community development, $395,000 is allotted to activities that include:
For public facilities, $75,000 will be used for street-paving assessment fees of qualified low- to moderate-income households in conjunction with the city's bond-financed street paving program.
For economic development activities, $250,000 is allocated as follows:
Housing activities included in this year's Action Plan are expected to rehabilitate 37 housing units and to help 17 lower income households buy their first home.
MAP 1 depicts points of interest in the jurisdiction.
MAP 2 depicts points of interest and low-moderate income areas.
MAP 3 depicts points of interest, low-moderate income areas, and minority concentration levels.
MAP 4 depicts points of interest, low-moderate income areas, and unemployment levels.
MAP 5 depicts points of interest, low-moderate income areas, unemployment levels, and proposed HUD funded projects.
MAP 6 is a map, sectioned by neighborhood, which depicts points of interest, low-moderate income areas, unemployment levels, and proposed HUD funded projects.
MAP 7 depicts points of interest, low-moderate income areas, unemployment levels, and proposed HUD funded projects within one of the four neighborhoods indicated in MAP 6.
MAP 8 depicts points of interest, low-moderate income areas, unemployment levels, and proposed HUD funded projects within another of the four neighborhoods indicated in MAP 6.
MAP 9 depicts points of interest, low-moderate income areas, unemployment levels, and proposed HUD funded project(s) from a street level vantage point; in addition; in addition, a table provides information about the project(s).
Barbara Armstrong
Community Development Manager
PO Box 635
Fayetteville, North Carolina 28302
Phone: 910-433-1593
Fax: 910-433-1762
