Download a larger (21MB) version of this map here.

This past Spring, JMU's student newspaper (The Breeze) published a very informative article about the Forest Hills neighborhood....

JMU purchases most of neighborhood for over $4 million

Some pertinent excerpts from that article follow....

• Over the last four years, JMU has purchased 14 homes in the 16-home neighborhood for approximately $4.2 million, according to public housing records obtained by The Breeze.
   
  
• Bill Wyatt, director of communications and university spokesperson, said the area was purchased to provide JMU faculty and staff with the opportunity to rent homes from the university, and that there are currently no long-term plans for the area.
   
  
• The funding for these purchases comes from JMU’s auxiliary reserve account, which consists of funds held back on an annual basis for things like property acquisition and unexpected maintenance. The rent that faculty and staff pay back to the university makes it a breakeven proposition.
  

Since I understand things better visually, I created the map at the top of this post to better show the context of these real estate transfers.  You can download a rather large (21 MB) version of this map here.

(the Breeze article as a PDF can be found here)