Written by Angelia L. Davis of the Greenville News
On a Saturday morning in June, 72-year-old Francina Oliver left her apartment in Leach Street Place, never to return.
It wasn’t her choice. She and other tenants had until June 30 to move from the apartment complex or face eviction, according to a “Notice of Non-renewal of Lease” some found attached to their doors.
111 South Leach Street, a one-acre site with five, single-story duplexes in Greenville’s Sterling community was sold in December for $1.6 million to Cobblestone Homes, a local custom homebuilder. It’s slated to be transformed into a 17-lot townhouse community, known as “Leach Street Commons.”
Konrad Nyblom, of Cobblestone Homes, did not return multiple phone calls seeking his responses and input. His only response, via text message, was about a claim regarding changes to relocation bonuses offered to tenants.
“Our relocation bonus structure shared with the tenants remains unchanged,” he said via text.
Oliver, who lived in Leach Street Place and is disabled, said she’d gotten “settled.”
“I was growing flowers, planting flowers, flowering up this place,” she said. “Now, I have to dig them up, find a place for my children to go.”
As plans were being made for those townhouses to come into the community Oliver and her neighbors, many elderly and on fixed incomes, were anxious and struggling to find a place to live before being forced out.
Veretta Lindsay made the tenants’ struggle her own. A member of the Sterling Neighborhood Association, she worked as a liaison between the developer and the tenants…
To continue reading, visit https://www.greenvilleonline.com/story/news/2022/07/06/sterling-tenants-forced-out-make-way-new-townhouse-project/7777375001/.