Lisbet Chiriboga is in love with her community.
She moved into Pelham Place, a historic 119-year-old Ghent apartment complex, in March 2024 looking for a place to retire and decrease her expenses. She didn’t expect to find a community and neighbors who liked and cared about one another. Residents even started a community garden.
“We were really thriving,” Chiriboga said.
However, just a few months ago, Chiriboga said that community was shattered. She and other residents are facing displacement due to new ownership, which is renovating every unit. Residents’ leases will not be renewed when they expire, leaving some tenants with as few as two months to find new housing.
“We have to go somewhere,” Chiriboga said.
Lisbet Chiriboga stands for a portrait outside her residence at Pelham Place Apartments in Norfolk on Thursday, Oct. 30, 2025. (Kendall Warner/The Virginian-Pilot)
The owner is giving residents right of first refusal to move to another unit in the complex, but charging around $400 more for monthly rent, she said.
Resident frustrations boiled over into several appeals to Norfolk City Council in monthly meeting public comment periods. Now, several City Council members are looking into ways for the city and state to protect tenants from sudden housing displacement due to renovations.
At the same time, one City Council member recognized that the new owner is investing in critical maintenance to the aging property.
Lightwell Development, a New York City-based real estate development firm focused on historic tax credit renovation work, purchased the property in September for $9.15 million, according to property records.
Tim Foley, Lightwell’s principal owner, is completing a number of renovations, including: new kitchens, bathrooms, flooring, window repair, new roofs, new heating and central air conditioning, plus installing new washers and dryers in each unit.
But residents of the apartment complex at 517 Boissevain Ave. have referred to the process as “renovictions” — a portmanteau of renovations and evictions. The process is legally distinct from evictions: rather, the property management is choosing not to renew leases when they expire, leaving the residents the options of leaving or signing a lease for higher rent on a renovated unit.
People have been scrambling to find new housing, said resident Robin Perkins. She moved to the complex two years ago. Apart from what she described as a slow maintenance request process, Perkins said she was satisfied with the complex.
Shortly before her lease ended in July, Perkins signed a notice of her intent to renew. However, because of the ownership change, Perkins was told that the notice was void and instead given two months to either transfer units or find other housing.
“It caused a lot of anxiety,” Perkins said. It was very stressful.”
Perkins was able to secure a lease in a studio apartment, but said due to price increases, she is now renting a space about half the size of her original one-bedroom unit for the same monthly rent of $1,200.
In a statement sent to The Pilot, Foley said he was an advocate for affordable, safe and habitable housing. He also said new rents would be at or below market value.
“Pelham Place has low rents, but it also rains in the units during a thunderstorm,” Foley said in the statement. “That’s not acceptable.”
Foley said his company would be completing more than $3 million in deferred maintenance to the property, and added that no residents would be evicted or have their rents raised during their lease periods.
Pelham Place Apartments in Norfolk on Thursday, Oct. 30, 2025. (Kendall Warner/The Virginian-Pilot)
Norfolk City Council member Jeremy McGee, who also co-chairs the Mayor’s Commission on Housing, toured the property and said the problems with maintenance probably began decades ago, adding he noticed issues like a roof covered with a tarp and leaky windows. He said the renovations were an opportunity for the new owner to repair the issues, but noted that at the same time, the rent increases and displacement were challenges for residents.
He said the commission plans to study ways for the city to incentivize landlords to incrementally increase rents to make sure housing stays in a livable condition through consistent maintenance, as well as further enforce city codes on the subject.
“We probably do have some levers that we can pull on that,” McGee said.
Fellow City Council member and housing commission co-chair Carlos Clanton said he was also concerned about the tenants. He said, at the state level, he thought lawmakers could pass legislation making landlords give tenants a longer time period for non-renewal notices. He planned to ask the city to include support for that move in an upcoming legislative agenda.
At the local level, Clanton said he was investigating whether the tax abatement process — in which the city allows developers who renovate or rebuild old housing to pay less on city taxes — could be tweaked to incentivize stabilizing the rents of existing tenants.
“I think there are opportunities,” Clanton said.
Daniel Rezai, a housing attorney with Virginia Poverty Law Center, said the practice of not renewing leases to complete renovations, or for other reasons like simply increasing rent, are legal.
“The landlords are given a lot of leeway as to what they intend on doing for the next year,” Rezai said.
One solution might be for state lawmakers to pass a law allowing for good-cause nonrenewals, which would stipulate certain reasons for not renewing a tenant’s lease, like a contract violation or not paying rent, Rezai said.
Rezai said Norfolk could also choose to create rental inspection districts, or areas of the city where city officials could step up code enforcement against negligent landlords whose residents are living in substandard conditions. Cities like Virginia Beach, Williamsburg and Newport News already have inspection programs.
Trevor Metcalfe, 757-222-5345, trevor.metcalfe@pilotonline.com
