The History of Park DuValle

The History

The Park DuValle Revitalization is being built on 125 acres within the Park DuValle Neighborhood, located southwest of Louisville’s downtown. The area was once a neglected community of blighted properties and is the former site of Cotter and Lang Homes, previously Louisville’s largest public housing developments. Built in the early to late 50’s, Cotter and Lang Homes met a very real need for post-WWII era public housing. Together, they contained 1116 units of one- to seven-bedroom apartments.

However, over the decades, the original deficiencies in site design had become evident. Cotter and Lang Homes comprised of rows of institutional buildings with blank concrete and brick facades surrounding common spaces that lacked individual identity. These unpatrollable and uncontrolled spaces became magnets for criminal activity. Furthermore, the buildings lacked the street focus that traditionally increases the sense of community in a neighborhood and improves public safety. This site plan (and the dense concentration of very low-income families) contributed to the high levels of distress evident in the developments. This in turn was having a deteriorating effect on the stable traditional neighborhoods surrounding the site.

Still, the community had enduring strengths, which included: 1) the stable neighborhoods to the south and east, made up of private homes priced at all ranges of the economic scale with high levels of homeownership; 2) tree-lined Algonquin Parkway, along Park DuValle’s southern edge, part of the historic park and parkway system designed by Frederick Law Olmstead (link), which links all the grand parks and neighborhoods throughout Louisville in an “Emerald Necklace”; 3) strong religious and community organizations which have provided stabilizing influences for several decades.

The Opportunity

In 1993, the Housing Authority of Louisville (HAL) began planning for the rehabilitation of Cotter and Lang Homes. Studies commissioned by HAL concluded that complete demolition and redevelopment of the properties were the only solutions that would result in long term viability, i.e., a safer and far more marketable and manageable neighborhood. The primary justification for demolition and redevelopment was the opportunity for creating a new community which is fully integrated into and improves the neighborhood of Park DuValle and not continuing public reinvestment in the segregation and concentration of lower income people.

This coincided with several changes in the public housing program at the congressional and federal level which resulted in giving public housing authorities increased flexibility in the use of their capital grant funds. And for the first time, HUD became open to proposals to demolish public housing units as a means of addressing the revitalization needs of very distressed public housing projects on a national basis.

Through normal attrition and a comprehensive relocation/displacement plan, residents of the properties to be demolished were given assistance to find new dwellings. Demolition was completed in 1997; new apartments were available in 1998 and new homes sales began in early 1999.

The Funding

This project is financed by: public housing resources, investor capital from the sale of Low Income Housing Tax Credits, and Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funds provided by the City of Louisiville.

HAL was awarded $31.4 million in housing development funds for this project. In addition, in October 1996, a $20 million HOPE VI grant was awarded to HAL by HUD for use in the Park DuValle Revitalization. HAL also brings another $14.8 million of previously approved development funds and provided $9.0 million of comprehensive grant funds for demolition, resident relocation and site preparation costs. The City of Louisville committed to support the project with approximately $10.0 million in infrastructure improvements over the build-out of the plan.