NCCU coach LeVelle Moton behind Raleigh affordable housing project

North Carolina Central University head basketball coach LeVelle Moton grew up in Raleigh’s housing projects, just east of downtown. His childhood was spent picking up games at the local park, “his sanctuary,” and attending Boys Club.

“When I go back, I’m not known as LeVelle, the basketball coach. I’m Puffy or Velle,” he told The News & Observer. “That’s what they know me as.”

But as Raleigh faces gentrification and rising home prices, many residents in historically Black neighborhoods are getting pushed out of town. Some of the most vulnerable are ending up in insecure housing or even homelessness.

Moton, 48, is making it his mission to fight this trend.

This week, the Raleigh Housing Authority selected the company Moton co-owns, Raleigh Raised Development, as co-developer along with Brinshore Development, for the redevelopment of Heritage Park, a housing project in Raleigh’s Warehouse District. In 2020, Moton founded the construction company in a bid to help stem the Triangle’s growing housing affordability problems.

“In my humble opinion, gentrification wouldn’t be so bad if Black people owned the land,” he said. “The problem with people that look like me is [they] haven’t had the chance to own or develop any properties. The biggest component of creating generational wealth and eradicating poverty is having a home. It’s really that simple.”

Heritage Park has been a staple in Raleigh since the 1970s. Sitting on roughly 11.6 acres of land, it contains 122 apartment units, many of which haven’t been renovated in decades. The apartments are reserved for people earning no more than 30% of the area median income.

The plan calls for either preserving or replacing all current affordable housing units, while adding additional housing to the complex. The exact number of new units remains unclear. Same goes with the project’s final price tag.

“No decisions have been made,” said Peter Levavi, executive vice president of Brinshore, an Illinois-based developer specializing in affordable and mixed-income housing. “We’re at the very start of the process.”

Commencing early next year, the redevelopment effort will kick off with a 12-month master planning period that will include residents, the city, local partners and stakeholders. Levavi said the project will be funded by housing tax credits, tax exempt bonds and other forms of public subsidy.

If it’s eventually decided that the existing units must be torn down, affected residents will be able to apply for federal Section 8 housing vouchers, move to other units within the complex or move elsewhere in the Raleigh Housing Authority system.

“Every resident that is currently on the site will have an opportunity to return to the site,” Levavi said.

Another certainty: The new development will be a mixed-income complex. That means including a range of housing for people across the income spectrum.

“Traditionally, public housing has created an island of poverty. The way out of that problem is to create a new development that is mixed income,” Moton said.

“I don’t want a glorified housing project. That’s not going to do any good, right? I want affordable housing where people can have a community grocery store, a doctor’s urgent care, child care, a hospital. Because at the end of the day, it’s the people that make up the communities. Not $11 chai lattes and $12 lettuce wraps.”

Increasing attainability

As the Triangle confronts a rapidly growing population and rising rents, housing affordability is reaching a crisis. One study by the United Way of the Capital Area has Raleigh’s affordable housing shortage hovering at roughly 20,000 rental units.

City officials say they’re working to find solutions. But for Moton, it’s personal.

Born in Boston, Moton moved to Raleigh at age 8. He was raised in the Lane Street projects just east of downtown by his single mother, Hattie McDougald. He recalls growing up with broken glass in neighbors’ windows and urine staining the pavement. When he went to buy snacks at the local convenience store, he had to pay through a bullet-proof enclosure.

“That was a red flag to me that said, ‘Look, I don’t respect you, and I don’t trust you,’” said Moton, who credits his local Boys Club for keeping him off the streets and away from drugs.

Focusing on basketball led him to pursue his dreams of becoming a college star. Moton was one of the nation’s best NCAA Division II players. He’s also won several Outstanding Coach and Coach of the Year awards, taking the NCCU Eagles to Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference men’s basketball tournament wins three years in a row.

A new mural on South Salisbury Street in downtown Raleigh celebrates his journey.

Off the courts, he started RRD to focus on building affordable housing in the kinds of neighborhoods he grew up in. His partners include Clarence Mann, manager of Vistabution LLC, a Raleigh-based minority‐owned general contracting business that provides environmental remediation, haz-mat clean-up, right-of-way acquisition and consulting services; and Terrell Midgett, co‐owner of Management Professionals Inc., a Raleigh-based facilities and maintenance company.

In today’s real estate landscape where the people who buy, sell and manage commercial real estate are overwhelmingly white and male, Moton acknowledges that a Black-owned development company is something of a “novelty.” But that shouldn’t be the case, he said.

“It’s important for us to develop these communities because it’s our communities,” he said. “Who knows the needs of the people better than us?”

In addition to Heritage Park, the firm has teamed up with the Raleigh Area Land Trust and Southeast Raleigh Promise to build a new subdivision at 907 E. Lane Street, Moton’s old stomping grounds. Called the Cottages of Idlewild and budgeted at $5 million to $6 million, it calls for 16 units, the majority of which are expected to be offered as affordable housing.

RRD is also a partner with the $2.2 billion Downtown South project spearheaded by Kane Realty and Steve Malik, owner of Cary-based N.C. Football Club and N.C. Courage. Plans include a 135-acre mixed-use project featuring a soccer stadium and apartment complex centered around the South Saunders Street and I-40 interchange. In late 2020, the project’s partners added RRD to the lineup to guarantee a significant participation of minority-owned businesses throughout the development.

Separately, Moton runs the Velle Cares Foundation, a philanthropic effort to assist organizations that work with young people and families.

“I have no problem with Raleigh growing, but Black people have got to be at the table in all of these projects,” he said. “My role is to help leverage opportunities for people that look like me. Because whatever we profit from, it’s going to be put back into community.”