Fayette Place, a former public housing development on twenty acres of land in historic Hayti that has languished in construction purgatory for two decades, seems to finally be moving forward.
This week, the Durham City Council unanimously approved a financing plan for Durham Housing Authority (DHA) to begin a first phase of construction of a mixed-use development called Villages of Hayti, and on November 17, the council is expected to approve the use of up to $17 million in affordable housing bond funds.
The phase 1 proposal includes 252 affordable rental units, serving families earning between 30 and 80 percent of area median income (AMI) with a mix of one-, two-, and three-bedroom units, as well as additional community amenities including outdoor playgrounds and a resource center.
The total cost of the project is approximately $90 million, financed through a complicated amalgamation of tax credits, loans, and affordable housing bond funds. DHA selected Durham Community Partners to develop the 19.8-acre project. According to a city council memo, Durham Community Partners, also known as Fayette Place JV, LLC, includes DHA’s development arm Development Ventures Incorporated (DVI), Harmony Housing Affordable Development, Gilbane Development Company, and F7 International Development.
On the Durham Community Partners website, the firm said they expected to break ground in late 2025. Due to the government shutdown, delays have pushed back financial closing and groundbreaking to early 2026, a representative from DHA told the INDY.
“We are excited about being part of this milestone and helping the community actually achieve this moment,” says Anthony Snell, interim CEO at DHA.
In the 1960s, Fayette Place was built as a public housing neighborhood to help replace housing that was lost after urban renewal and the construction of the Durham Freeway hollowed out much of Hayti. Over time, the property fell into disrepair. DHA had planned to redevelop the project into for-profit Section 8 housing, but those plans dissolved, and in 2007, DHA sold the property to Philadelphia-based Campus Apartments, one of the largest student housing developers in the United States, for $4 million.
The deal stipulated that Campus Apartments had to develop at least 168 units of affordable housing by August 2017 or DHA would have the right to buy back the site. Campus Apartments sought to build low-income student housing for North Carolina Central University, but the university never signed on to participate in the project. The property continued to languish, with only the original foundations left on the property, a relic to housing dreams deferred.
No plan materialized for Campus Apartments, so in 2017, DHA bought back the property with $4 million from the City of Durham, intent on trying again for a viable affordable housing project on the site.
DHA told the INDY that it expects phase 2 of the Villages of Hayti will include 68 units of senior housing and phase 3 another 100 to 120 units. It’s unclear how many of the phase 2 and 3 units would be affordable.
Tracts of land for affordable housing, especially larger lots within the urban core, are increasingly more difficult to come by, heightening the level of scrutiny that projects like Villages of Hayti receive from residents, especially those who live in historic neighborhoods like Hayti. When DHA proposed a previous iteration of development plans in 2022, residents clamored for an open and active engagement process so that the project reflected their long-held desires for the site.
Snell says that it’s a challenge to satisfy every person’s goals, especially when resources are scarce. He said DHA has met with community members including Anita Scott Neville, director of Hayti Reborn, a nonprofit organization working to revitalize the historic Hayti district, throughout the process.
“All of the community engagement that we did as part of the process, Ms. Neville and her team and other community members, listening to them and making adjustments to the development, trying to address their concerns, it’s just not easy,” Snell told the INDY after Monday’s city council meeting, “because you never have enough resources, and it’s never going to be exactly what everyone wants. You try your best to give the community something that it deserves. And that’s important to me, to make sure that we have a product that’s fitting and deserving for that community.”
Hayti Reborn made a bid to lead redevelopment of Fayette Place when requests for proposal first went out in 2022, but ultimately did not get the nod from DHA. The organization was also instrumental in organizing residents against the nearby Heritage Square development that was withdrawn in August after years of deliberation.
The city has already allocated $10 million in funding to support the revitalization of the Fayetteville Street corridor and has started down the path to “reimagining” parts of the Durham Freeway near Hayti that could transform the roadway into a more pedestrian-forward experience that better connects Hayti to downtown. Durham Community Land Trustees is also working on smaller-scale housing projects on Grant Street, and North Carolina Central University continues to expand its footprint as its need for additional academic facilities and student housing grows.
Villages of Hayti could be a linchpin for growth in the neighborhood. Hundreds of residents will relocate to the area, which could bring economic opportunity to the surrounding business districts. But the uncertainty developers are facing in the current market could further complicate an already laborious process and drag out the project’s timeline.
“Yes, there were a lot of stops and starts on this site, and that’s the challenge of development,” Snell says. “I can’t sit here and tell you today that we may not run into some challenges as we move along. That’s the risk in doing this business. It’s not for the faint of heart. I’ve been working on this project now for three years or more, since being here, trying to get it off the ground.”
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