Allan Appel Photo
The Housing Authority of New Haven and the city took a first step to transforming a “concrete jungle,” as the Church Street South housing complex across the street from Union Station is sometimes known, into a mixed-income community.
Now all it’s going to take is community involvement and approval, at least five more years, and about $520 million.
Tuesday night HANH’s Board of Commissioners unanimously passed a memorandum of understanding (or an “MOU”) authorizing the authority to work with the city and Church Street South owner Northland Investment Corporation to fashion a master plan.
Northland has recently run afoul of city inspectors who discovered deadly levels of carbon monoxide in apartments, the result of furnaces that were in dangerous disrepair. Tenants had to be evacuated out of fears for their lives, and the feds ordered emergency repairs. City inspectors discovered that despite receiving millions in Section 8 public-housing voucher reimbursements, Northland allowed the complex to remain in dangerous disrepair and was slow to respond to demands to bring apartment sup to code. (Click here for a follow-up story on the evacuees.) Northland officials have refused to make themselves available for interviews about conditions.
Northland’s regional real estate empire has also started crumbling. Last month a lender foreclosed on Metro Center One, an office tower Northland owns in Hartford.
None of that even entered the discussion as HANH proceeded Tuesday in inking its $520 million partnership with the firm.
Although the MOU only sets a framework to begin planning and legally does not obligate HANH, Deputy Director for Development Jimmy Miller said, “This codifies our relationship with Northland.”
Miller was asked after the meeting whether Northland’s health and safety track record makes it a good partner to continue to receive government millions to house poor people.
“That’s not our purview,” he said. “Our role is to help the city to revitalize [this] community.”
He said he had no knowledge of the conditions of the furnaces at Church Street South. His goal is to provide financing expertise and other aid to the city as it works with Northland, Miller said. “We’re not here to pass judgment on Northland.”
He added that if the plan comes to pass, the longer-term viability of a revitalized Church Street will lead to a better quality of life on matters such as deferred maintenance. Such improvements took place at the Elm Haven projects when they were rebuilt as Monterey Place as well as with the rebuilding of Quinnipiac Terrace, Miller said.
The Church Street South master plan will become a PDD, or planned development district project, to be submitted to the Board of Aldermen for approval. It is being made possible by a $950,000 challenge grant that HANH received from the feds.
Emphasizing that all plans are likely to evolve depending on the vagaries of the marketplace and crucial financing, Miller said the 800 projected residential units well might be a mixed income development. He called that the most viable.
The MOU confirms HANH in its work with the city and Northland in both developing a master plan and a relocation plan for current residents.
HANH documents also describe the project as containing 350,000 square feet of commercial space and 50,000 square feet of retail space with associated parking.
If the plan comes to pass, the $520 million price tag would be the most expensive project HANH has been part of, more than double the approximate $200 million cost for Quinnipiac Terrace or the ongoing Brookside redevelopment.
While expressing confidence, Miller said “It’s all determined by the availability of financing and resident and community input.”
The MOU requires that the PDD be presented to the Board of Aldermen no later than October of this year.
Church Street South contains 301 apartments, all of which house low-income families supported by federal Section 8 subsidies. The adjacent Robert T. Wolfe tower is wholly owned by HANH and has 90 apartments. “It’s not dictated that Wolfe will be part” of the ultimate new development, Miller said.