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Despite the recent decision by the Cherokee Triangle ARC to deny Louisville Collegiate School permits to demolish Yorktown Apartments, the school who owns the property has decided to continue with evictions. The following statement has been released by the Louisville Tenants Union.
DIRECT RELEASE FROM THE LOUISVILLE TENANTS UNION
Homes over parking lots - people over profit! Help us protect the Yorktown tenants from displacement and Collegiate's greed.
In the midst of a major housing shortage, Louisville should protect affordable apartments. On March 8 it tried to: an effort that was aborted by private school Collegiate’s greed.
In 2022, Collegiate submitted a proposal to demolish the Yorktown Apartment complex in order to build a new parking lot for their campus. After a particularly powerful showing of tenant and community power at the March 8 board meeting, the Cherokee Triangle Architectural Review Board voted to REJECT the demolition proposal as, to quote one board member, “trading three buildings where people live in a residential neighborhood for 56 parking spots isn't a very fair trade."
Despite their proposal being denied, and despite community outrage, Collegiate is STILL EVICTING the remaining tenants, moving forward with the evictions which can only be interpreted as retaliation and a bad faith dismissal of the board’s verdict.
Collegiate has not done enough to alleviate the financial burden they placed on their tenants: poor and working-class families who cannot afford to simply up and move whenever it's convenient for Collegiate, especially in a neighborhood like the Highlands, where most of the remaining affordable housing has already been bought by Collegiate!
We are therefore reaching out to the community, and to Collegiate’s student and parent base in particular, to absorb the damages. Those damages include, but aren't limited to: moving expenses, commuting expenses, missed wages, increases in rent and utilities, the costs of arranging or rearranging childcare, and the costs of transferring schools.
We believe our goal of $25,000, the equivalent of one year of tuition at Collegiate, is more than achievable.
Thank you in advance to the parents who have voiced their outrage about Collegiate’s actions, and for helping to ensure that the Yorktown tenants do not end up unhoused.
Presser from January 25th
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