Between 1949 and 1978, the government of Charlottesville and the Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority (CRHA) worked with the federal government to carry out two urban renewal projects in the city. In total, the projects displaced more than 1,000 residents in three majority-Black neighborhoods: Vinegar Hill, Cox’s Row, and the Garrett Street area. Two citywide votes decided the fate of Vinegar Hill, the largest of these neighborhoods and one of Charlottesville’s oldest historically Black communities. Both Black and white residents opposed urban renewal in Charlottesville, though for different reasons, and the referendums passed with slim margins at a time when poll taxes impeded lower-income residents’ civic involvement. Vinegar Hill sat vacant for years after its destruction before significant development emerged. The CRHA ultimately razed the Cox’s Row neighborhood to build new segregated public housing for lower-income Black residents. In 1973, CRHA also demolished the Garrett Street area, where Garrett Square, Charlottesville’s largest subsidized housing neighborhood, was built. In 1969, a third urban renewal project was unsuccessfully attempted near the University of Virginia hospital in the Black neighborhood of Gospel Hill. That neighborhood was later razed by other means. In 2011, the City of Charlottesville officially apologized for the destruction of Vinegar Hill and Garrett Street.
