A long-awaited 122-unit subdivision that is supposed to rise on nearly 40 acres in the 500 block of Dove Street in Highland Park remains shut down.

Work began last spring on the mixed-income housing development on which the Better Housing Coalition serves as master developer, but halted in August and has yet to resume.

According to Greta J. Harris, BHC president and CEO, the nonprofit developer of affordable homes and apartments is still working out agreements with the city for the release of millions of dollars to pay for installation of utility lines, new streets and alleys and other infrastructure for the Highland Grove project.

Ms. Harris said she is optimistic that the legal agreements will be signed and approved through City Council early in 2024 so that work can restart by the spring.

She said BHC is not prepared to proceed without all of the funding in place.

Her optimism proved to be justified.

Mayor Levar M. Stoney’s administration introduced to council an ordinance embodying the agreement with BHC to be voted on in January.

The council already has approved providing $11.9 million for the development of Phase 1, with virtually all of the funding earmarked to pay for installation of the infrastructure for the first 97 homes.

The city has set aside another $6.6 million for development of Phase 2, with 25 homes, for a total of 122.

Ms. Harris said the paperwork issues that arose likely would mean the first homes will not be available until at least 2025, given that completion of site work scheduled for June 2024 would be pushed back at least six months.

Waiting in the wings for the site work to be completed are three BHC partners, Richmond Metropolitan Habitat for Humanity, project:Homes and the Maggie Walker Community Land Trust, which are to develop the homes.

Of the first 97 homes, 28 are to be affordable, currently defined by the federal government as a home that that is being sold for no more than $323,000.

The development is to sit beside Overby-Sheppard Elementary School on land that was once home to the Virginia National Guard.

The halt in work represents another delay for a housing development that has been in the works since L. Douglas Wilder was mayor of the city more than 14 years ago.

During his tenure Mayor Wilder began the push to revamp the area that led by 2008 to the removal of the 60-unit Dove Court public housing and dilapidated private apartments that sat across the street.

Their replacement, the current 128 Highland Grove rental units, opened in 2013, leaving the subdivision as the last piece to be accomplished.

Though it took more years, the Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority, which owned the land, tapped BHC to handle the development in 2020

and turned over the land to BHC in 2021. It is to be BHC’s first residential subdivision.