Community Comment: City Center South Lacks What Makes Winter Hill Home
Anita and Jack Rosenberg have lived in Winter Hill Apartments for 17 years. Actively involved in the Senior Center and Winter Hill community, they explain what makes Winter Hill so special and why they have written to the City Council in opposition to City Center South.
We love living in Winter Hill. Our garden apartment gives us privacy, peace, and quiet, and allows us to live in Falls Church on our fixed income while still being able to afford other necessities. City Center South as proposed will not offer us the same amenities, and if it is built, we understand that Winter Hill will cease to exist and we will be forced to move.
We are very aware of the need for more affordable housing. If it weren’t for affordable housing, we could not live in Falls Church. However, the proposed new housing will not offer many things that we currently have at Winter Hill. and that allow many of us to live independently. We won’t be able to walk to the library, to the banks, to CVS, to the bus on Broad Street. We won’t be able to sit on our balcony and enjoy the different seasons. Our tight-knit community — who support each other when family members do not live near — will be split among floors. We will be removed from our larger community, the Winter Hill condominiums.
We have previously lived in high-rise apartments and experienced elevators breaking down, noise, insufficient maintenance, and lack of security. When we moved to Winter Hill, we had hoped to never face those things again. But now, under the City Center South proposal, 80 families are being told they must uproot and move to a high-density building…or be given a voucher to find another housing option.
While affordable housing may be necessary for the Falls Church economy and of benefit to many younger people who otherwise would not be able to live in Falls Church, it should not be at the expense of the lives of its senior citizens who are members of its community.
By (see byline)
May 10, 2009
TFC asked in another post whether residents of Winter Hill had been surveyed about moving to The Wilden. The above article was published in the FCT on May 10, 2009.
Susan, I read this when published and found it interesting. However, it is the opinion of one couple. I wonder if these thoughts are shared by other residents? I had assumed the current residents had expressed a desire to move to a new place when Wilden plan was in the formulation stage but I have never seen survey results. In the back of my mind, through all the gyrations of Wilden discussions, was the question….what if we build it and they do not come?