Sherwood Heights Redevelopment

Thoma first began working with the Village of Sidney through the Greater Sidney Development Corporation (GSDC) in 1998.  The GSDC is a not-for-profit corporation formed to promote the development of the Greater Sidney area. Thoma was hired to complete a Consolidated Plan that would help the Sidney area address community issues.  Subsequently, the Village and the Sidney Community Foundation, a not-for profit organization founded to raise funds for the greater Sidney area, hired Thoma under our grant writing service.  One of the major projects identified in the Consolidated Plan was the need to redevelop the Sherwood Heights neighborhood.

During World War II, a local manufacturer of aerospace equipment was awarded war defense contracts and employment at their Sidney plant quickly swelled to 8,000 persons.  In 1944, the U. S. Department of War constructed the Sherwood Heights Housing Development in the Village as temporary housing for defense industry workers at the plant.  This was a large, multi-family housing development consisting of some 65, one to six unit structures. Following the war, instead of dismantling the buildings, the government sold them to private owners, many of them absentee landlords.  This began a long decline in the neighborhood that resulted in a decaying housing stock, occupation by a predominantly low income population, and an escalating incidence of crime. Thoma has worked closely with the Village and the GSDC to design and implement a major redevelopment of this neighborhood with the goal of transforming it into a vibrant neighborhood of single-family homes.

In 2001, Thoma assisted the Village in securing a successful CDBG award for Phase 1 of the Sherwood Heights redevelopment.  The Village and the GSDC had acquired a number of the most dilapidated of the development’s structures through tax foreclosure and purchase.  With CDBG funds, the Village has demolished 19 of these vacant structures and has used a portion of the award to provide purchase subsidies to low and moderate income households to assist them in purchasing newly constructed single family homes on the vacant land. A subsequent award by the Affordable Housing Corporation increased the number of subsidies available for home purchase

In addition to the housing grants, Sidney also received a Fiscal Year 2002 NYS Department of Environmental Conservation Community and Urban Forestry Grant to plant new street trees in Sherwood Heights. Sidney continues to work with Thoma on subsequent phases of the development project including the acquisition and demolition  of the remainder of the dilapidated temporary housing, more subsidized and market rate homes, and creation of a neighborhood park.