County outlines $1.5M request, $75K planning grant for Penman Road housing rehabilitation

Abbott Woodall, housing manager for community services, briefed the board on the Pinnaman (Penman) Road housing study and related rehabilitation projects, explaining the program’s recent experience and the planned next steps. He said the county has closed a recent project (Carrie’s Chapel/K’s Chapel) that renovated 14 homes, demolished and rebuilt one unsalvageable dwelling, and leveraged roughly $1.3 million in grant and state/federal match to reach about $1.7 million in total project value.

Woodall said the county received a $75,000 planning grant from the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development to do the Penman Road study and identify and prioritize need; staff mailed 882 surveys, received roughly 200 responses and identified about 120 households that preliminarily self-reported income-qualifying need. “We received a $75,000 grant from the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development,” Woodall told the board, noting that the county is proposing a $1.5 million request for construction funds and has committed a multi-year local match drawn from the emergency repair program. He said the first project area would target about 16 homes and that work will include temporary relocation, mobile storage, accessibility improvements and lead abatement where needed.

Board members asked about the county share of match dollars (Woodall estimated the county commitment at roughly $30,000 for a comparable recent project) and urged staff to pursue stronger survey response rates and to prioritize the use of local contractors where possible. Woodall said the construction funding decision would be announced in the fall and that work could begin in winter or spring if the award is made.