Washington Post by Michele Lerner

As part of the District’s New Communities Initiative, an ongoing effort to preserve and build affordable housing in the city, a new four-story, 150-unit apartment complex will be built at 5201 Hayes St. NE in Deanwood next year.

Deanwood Hills LLC, a joint venture partnership between Pennrose Properties LLC and the Warrenton Group, is the developer of the Deanwood Hills Apartments, a $34.9 million project. The new complex, to be built on a 2.1-acre site, will provide 50 replacement units for the Lincoln Heights/Richardson Dwellings public housing development.

Deanwood Hills will include studio, one-, two-, three- and four-bedroom apartments. The development will include a community room with a cyber cafe, a fitness room, three courtyards, a bike storage room and a tot lot. There will be 75 free parking spaces assigned on a free-requested basis to residents.

Forty of the 150 units will be set aside for households earning up to 30 percent of area median income (AMI). AMI is currently $108,600 in the District. Ten units will be set aside for households earning up to 60 percent of AMI. The remaining 100 units will be affordable to households earning up to 60 percent of AMI but won’t be restricted for those households.

The D.C. Housing Finance Agency provided tax-exempt financing for this project in Ward 7, one of several partnerships with developers anticipated for the coming year. Additional financing came from low-income housing tax credits, a New Communities Initiative loan, a D.C. Housing Authority loan and a Citi Community Capital loan.