1736 Magazine - Fall 2018
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REBIRTH OF<br />
A COMMUNITY<br />
Laney-Walker/Bethlehem sees new housing as catalyst for redevelopment<br />
By Damon Cline<br />
Years ago, the only time you saw<br />
a backhoe or bulldozer in the<br />
Laney-Walker/Bethlehem area was<br />
when an abandoned and dilapidated<br />
home was getting razed.<br />
Today, the heavy equipment is more<br />
likely doing site-prep work for a new subdivision<br />
or multifamily complex.<br />
Led by the city of Augusta and numerous nonprofit-housing<br />
development partners, the historically<br />
black 1,100-acre neighborhood south of<br />
downtown is in the early stages of a renaissance.<br />
A notorious public housing project is now a<br />
brand new apartment complex for residents 55<br />
and older. Weeded and trash strewn lots are now<br />
filled with quaint single-family homes. Abandoned<br />
homes that served as dens of drug dealing<br />
and prostitution are now duplexes with landscaped<br />
lawns.<br />
“There is an unprecedented level of activity<br />
in a wide variety of housing,” said Hawthorne<br />
Welcher, director of the Augusta Housing and<br />
Community Development department.<br />
Nowhere is revitalization efforts more visible<br />
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