9 Investigates: Charlotte's exploding with growth. Who's moving in and is all the growth healthy?

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — As Charlotte explodes with growth, neighborhoods that have been neglected for decades are suddenly becoming desirable.

Entire city blocks are being transformed every day, so Channel 9 dug through the data behind the changes to see who is moving into the city’s hot, new neighborhoods.

What we found raises questions about whether all the change is healthy.

To see one of the rapid transformations, look no further than Statesville Avenue.

Ten years ago, it was a rundown and often dangerous corner north of Uptown.

Now the area once known as Double Oaks is called Brightwalk.

When Brightwalk was built, city leaders said the beautiful, thriving community would be a shining example of a mixed-income neighborhood.

Today, renting an apartment there is relatively affordable for just about anyone. However, buying a house is a different story.

According to data from Carolina Multiple Listing Services, Inc., the average home in the Double Oaks area sold for $123,000 in 2007.

In October 2018 the average price was nearly $280,000, which is far out of reach for many of the area’s long-time residents.

To understand who is moving into the neighborhood, Channel 9 went through the most recent and complete data from the federal Home Mortgage Disclosure Act.

According to those numbers from 2016, 93 percent of the families who live in the neighborhood are not white.

However, the data shows 71 percent of the loans for new homes are going to white families.

County Commissioner Pat Cotham thinks that's out of balance.

"It's troubling. It's something that we cannot ignore,” she said.

Channel 9’s Mark Barber dug through census tract records to map out other neighborhoods in Charlotte that are gentrifying.

Here’s what he found:

The list of neighborhoods with high rates of change include: Brightwalk, Grier Heights, Villa Heights, Kilborne Park, Belmont, Optimist Park, Biddleville, the stretch of North Davidson Street that leads to NoDa, the area including Wesley Heights and Seversville, and the area including Boulevard Homes and Capitol Drive near Charlotte Douglas Airport.

In the neighborhoods pictured in the map, more than 700 new families were granted home loans in just one year.

Historically, most of those communities were black neighborhoods but federal Home Mortgage Disclosure Act numbers show most of the loans for new homes are going to white families.

In some communities, such as Kilborne Park, loans are going to white families at rates as high as 91 percent.

Advocates for change say some of the new families are blending into the fabric of the community. Some are putting their children into neighborhood public schools. Crime is also down in many of those neighborhoods.

On the other hand, as those zip codes become pricier, many of the neighborhoods where black families were forced to live for decades by government-sanctioned housing discrimination known as redlining are now out of reach for many middle-class black families.

The effects of policies like redlining last through generations, so even now, it can be difficult for many black families to buy into Charlotte’s up and coming neighborhoods.

A 2016 study from the Institute for Policy Studies found it will take the average black family 228 years to earn the same wealth of a white family.

Cotham said, “It worries me that African Americans are not getting opportunities to live in a home like this. These are beautiful homes over here off Statesville Avenue but I wouldn't think of these as starter homes. These are $250,000 - $400,000."

[ALSO READ: Priced Out of Charlotte and county-by-county resource guide]

As Charlotte's inner-city neighborhoods transform, the Charlotte Housing Partnership is trying to build healthy and diverse neighborhoods.

"What we're building here is single family homes, selling for between $150,000 - $155,000 and it's for people who earn less than 80 percent of the median income,” said Julie Porter the president of the Charlotte Housing Partnership.

The Housing Partnership has helped 570 people get grants so they could afford down payments to move into new homes.

Shemeka Tucker is a black single mother of five and she got down payment assistance through the Partnership. It helped her move into a handsome new house with plenty of space and hardwood floors near Brightwalk.

"It's a feeling you can't really describe until you actually get in and then you get in and you just fall on the floor,” she said smiling from ear to ear.

Despite the hundreds of people the Housing Partnership has helped, the city is still short an estimated 34,000 affordable housing units.

The Partnership says the city started saving parcels of land in the Druid Hills neighborhood near Brightwalk decades ago, so it's now able to use that land to build affordable homes.

However, the city didn't save land in many of the other neighborhoods that are in demand now, so it isn't able to have the same impact in other areas that are gentrifying.

"What we're doing I don't think is working. I think we have to try some different things,” said Cotham.

Right now Charlotte's city council oversees affordable housing.

Commissioner Cotham thinks it could be time for the county to help too.

"This is a community problem. It's too big for the city. The city can't do this by themselves. I think we need to have more partnerships,” she said.

Cotham says if the county ever steps in, it could try to help by buying land from CMS.

Channel 9 discovered the district has roughly 100 surplus acres that could possibly be used to develop homes.

Approximately 20 of those acres are in areas that are considered desirable. We mapped you out for them here.

Shemeka Tucker grew up in some of Charlotte’s historically black neighborhoods that are slowly losing their history.

As new families keep moving in, she hopes the city will find a way to help people of all colors afford to live side by side.

"There are programs out there to help you stay in the neighborhoods if you just look for them," Tucker said.

If you are wondering how you can get down payment assistance like Tucker, the Charlotte Housing Partnership can help you walk through that process.

To learn more, click here. 

If you'd like to see the ratio of home loan approvals in your neighborhood, email mark.barber@wsoc-tv.com with the subject line: Home loan details in my neighborhood.

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