Spring 2021 Issue - 46
Rising fromin thetheU.S.Wreckage
Virgin Islands
After a pair of hurricanes pummeled the Virgin Islands' aging public housing in 2017,
a public/private partnership used advice from ULI panels to develop a resilient,
sustainable replacement that promises to raise residents' living standards.
When two Category 5 hurricanes, Irma and
Maria, hit the U.S. Virgin Islands in quick succession
in 2017, the public housing sector in the territory-
which accounts for 15 percent of its total housing
stock-suffered some of the most severe damage.
On St. Thomas, the Tutu High Rise complex was battered by winds that ripped exterior walls off buildings, leaving the apartments and their low-income
residents exposed to the open air.
The catastrophe exposed an underlying problem
as well. Buildings for low-income residents, which
had been erected decades ago to meet minimum
standards of quality, had suffered through decades
of punishment from extreme weather, even before
the recent hurricanes rendered some uninhabitable.
Simply maintaining the outdated developments
would not offer protection against the increasingly
extreme storms that climate change is likely to bring
in the future, or adequately provide for the residents' needs.
" We're never, ever going to build housing the
way it was allowed in the '50s, '60s, and '70s, "
46
U R B A N LA N D
AFeature_Kiger_SP21.indd 46
S P I N E / V. I . H O U S I N G A U T H O R I T Y
PATRICK J. KIGER
says Robert Graham, executive director of the Virgin
Islands Housing Authority (VIHA).
Instead, under Graham's leadership, the housing
authority embarked upon a bolder, more imaginative, and transformative course. Drawing in part
upon the recommendations of two ULI Advisory
Services panels that visited the territory in 2018 and
2019, VIHA and its development partners devised a
plan for an entirely new $57.7 million complex-the
Donoe Redevelopment Project, also known as Estate
Donoe-which will replace the austere dwellings of
the past with a new approach.
The Donoe project, located on the site of public
housing that was demolished after being damaged
by a 1995 hurricane, is scheduled for completion in
December 2022. Its 14 three- and four-story buildings with 84 apartment units, plus a community
building, set in the midst of 10.6 landscaped acres
(4 ha), will be hardened with features designed to
withstand hurricane winds and rain, as well as the
earthquakes that pose a threat in the Virgin Islands.
For additional resilience, the development will be
SPRING 2021
4/1/21 8:41 AM
Spring 2021 Issue
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Spring 2021 Issue
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Spring 2021 Issue - Cover3
Spring 2021 Issue - Cover4
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