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Prince George's planners say the key to preserving affordable housing in the Langley Park area may rest in the hands of nonprofit organizations, but a lack of funding could keep such efforts from getting off the ground.

Residents and community activists have worried the sector plan for the Takoma/Langley Crossroads area, which overlaps the border between Montgomery and Prince George's counties, will result in the displacement of low-income residents and small businesses. The plan provides recommendations for redevelopment that will coincide with the construction of two proposed Purple Line stations over the next 10 years.

The plan calls for replacing multifamily housing and retail space along University Boulevard between Riggs Road and New Hampshire Avenue with mixed-use development.

"As of this point in time, there is no guarantee that one affordable apartment will replace what would be torn down," said Bill Hanna, executive secretary of Action Langley Park and a professor of urban planning at the University of Maryland, College Park, at a community meeting Sept. 21 in Langley Park to update residents on the plan.

Such a guarantee does exist in Montgomery County, which has drawn up a sector plan that calls for no loss in affordable housing. Montgomery County law requires between 12.5 and 15 percent of all units in subdivisions or high-rises with 20 units or more be set aside for residents who earn 70 percent or less of the area's median income, according to the county's website.

Without a corresponding law in Prince George's, reaching out to nonprofit groups that specialize in providing affordable housing may be the solution, according to Aldea Douglas of the Prince George's Planning Department of the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission.

But at least one nonprofit organization says the economic downturn and its accompanying budget cuts have made financing affordable housing projects increasingly difficult.

"We're always looking for opportunities," said James Brown Jr., president of Victory Housing, the nonprofit housing arm of the Archdiocese of Washington. "The difficulty we're finding out there is [lack of] money."

Victory Housing recently opened an affordable senior living community in Chillum that was financed through a federal housing program, but that program is scheduled to be eliminated, Brown said. Future projects would need to be financed by other means.

"Is it impossible? No, but it certainly has gotten more difficult," Brown said.

Douglas said that regardless of the current economic climate, the county and housing providers need to be ready for when the economy does recover.

"We are aware that federal funding is dwindling," Douglas said. "We don't anticipate that any redevelopment will occur in the next year or so, but we want to make sure those relationships are cultivated."

dleaderman@gazette.net