For the more than 10,000 undergraduate students who live off Grounds, privately-developed “luxury student apartments” are among an expanding set of housing options. Examples include the Flats at West Village, built in 2014, the Lark on Main built in 2016 and Yugo Crestline, constructed in 2018. All are located on West Main Street — roughly half of a mile from Grounds. With total rent and fees ranging from anywhere between $800 to over $2,000 a month, these apartment options feature student-focused features such as fully furnished apartments with individual leases, and luxury amenities include gyms, clubhouses and pools.
Tucked away behind the six-story Yugo Crestline building sits the community of Westhaven — Charlottesville’s oldest public housing site. The city government built the 126 affordable apartment units in 1964 to house displaced residents of Vinegar Hill — a majority Black neighborhood which the Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority demolished as part of post-World War II urban renewal efforts to revitalize American cities. Westhaven is also located within the broader 10th and Page neighborhood — Charlottesville’s largest continual African American community.
Joy Johnson, founder of the Charlottesville Public Housing Association of Residents, has lived in Westhaven for 43 years. She is among a growing number of residents expressing concerns with the onslaught of private student housing projects nearby. Johnson told The Cavalier Daily that the structures are imposing, encroaching into Westhaven and gentrifying the 10th & Page neighborhood — changing its character such that wealthier residents are attracted to the area, increasing the cost of living and forcing working-class residents to move…