Residents of Inverkeithing have helped to select a favoured option for the £15 million regeneration of the town’s Fraser Avenue.
Plans by architect 7N show two new streets and terraces with up to 200 houses of various types and sizes in place of the 39 blocks of flats that are to be bulldozed.
The street has long been stigmatised as a bad area and has become an unpopular place to live.
Four years ago the council revealed its ambition to demolish it and start again, rebranding the area and making it more appealing to potential tenants.
Affordable housing programme and regeneration team manager David Robertson said the council hopes to submit a planning application later this year for the redevelopment, which would be carried out in collaboration with partner Kingdom Housing Association.
He said: “After consulting on a series of options, the local community have endorsed in principle the idea of realigning the existing street to create a fresh start for Fraser Avenue, allowing a new, central village green space to be formed as a new heart for the housing development as well for the wider community.
“Branching off from this space are two new streets, which will give access to small terraces of housing at a more intimate scale from the current blocks of flats.
“These new terraced streets will weave into the wider context, creating physical connections across the development.
“The preference is to have a mix of house types and sizes with each new home having its own, private front door and garden.
“Space has been allowed for the inclusion of local shops but relocated to the top of the street, reducing their impact on the new residential development whilst connecting more directly with the high school and wider community.
“This proposal will now be developed in collaboration with Kingdom Housing Association and in consultation with Fife Council’s planners with a view to submitting a full planning application later this year.”
Fife Council is in the process of emptying the street so it can be rebuilt. So far 37 tenants have been moved out of Fraser Avenue and Gray Place and more than two-thirds of private properties have been bought back.
Those who wish to remain in the street will be housed temporarily until the new homes are ready.
Inverkeithing and Dalgety Bay councillor Lesley Laird said: “It’s great to see things are moving.”
Congratulating those involved in the work undertaken, she added: “Let’s get this done; let’s get these new homes built.”