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Crosscut: Development deal aims to save Seattle’s black community

The 2.5-acre plot on the southeast corner of 23rd Avenue and East Union Street in Seattle’s Central District — once a cornerstone of historic black Seattle and now a symbol of displacement and gentrification – has been purchased for just over $23 million. It’s a partnership between Lake Union Partners, the urban and rural preservation organization Forterra and Africatown Community Land Trust, an advocacy organization to acquire land for Seattle’s African American population.

The development deal will result in more than 200 affordable housing units and represents an experiment for preventing further displacement and testing the limits of the affordable housing requirement mandated to for-profit developers.

Is this a model that can be replicated elsewhere? And if the city had demanded more affordable housing, would this project have happened at all?

Read the full story here.

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