Allan Appel Photo
Celinda Primera Colmenares .
A 72-year-old woman had an idea for how the housing authority should replace the 70-year-old Farnam Courts complex at Grand and Hamilton: Put up a new building set aside for seniors.
The answer from the authority: Sorry, no can do, but please apply anyway. We’ll have room for you.
That answer came Thursday night as Housing Authority of New Haven (HANH) Executive Director Karen DuBois-Walton and her staff visited the Columbus Family Academy. The meeting’s purpose purpose: to solicit suggestions as HANH gears up to tear down the Farnam COurts projects then rebuild them with some townhouses on the spot, and new housing scattered elsewhere.
The plan rests on the authority winning a federal Choice Neighborhoods Initiative (CNI) to support the ambitious $30 million project.
The CNI grant is the Obama administration’s equivalent of the HOPE VI grants that HANH has successfully used not only to build new housing but also to transform the neighborhoods around Monterey Place and Quinnipiac Terrace.
Fair Haven Alderwoman Migdalia Castro and HANH’s Karen DuBois-Walton.
Officials hope to do the same with 240-unit Farnam Courts. But under rules for replacing demolished apartments, housing officially reserved specifically for seniors cannot be part of it, DuBois-Walton told a disappointed Celinda Primera Colmenares. “This development is a replacement for a family development. We need to put back a family development. The elderly are free to apply, but it’s not a set-aside for the elderly.”
The plan calls for a mixture of affordable housing, market rate, and homeownership units to be placed on the current Farnam spot as well as at sites in Fair Haven and in “scattered site” housing in more suburban areas of Greater New Haven County. Click here for an article on a previous meeting at which officials made initial estimates of 120 units at Farnam, 50 in Fair Haven, and another 100 within 25 miles of Farnam.
DuBois-Walton revealed preliminary plans at the current Farnam site call for four four-story elevator buildings situated near Grand and Hamilton for easier access to the bus lines. She said nothing precludes Colmenares from applying for such units. HANH does have elderly-only developments and elderly set-asides at other locations.
Fair Haven Alderwoman Migdalia Castro said the area has many elderly who are caring for grandchildren who will be be interested in the rebuilt housing. They have an interest in the “wraparound” services such as computer training, transportation, and day care that come with such large federal grants, said Castro.
DuBois-Walton added that as part of the CNI submission HANH intends to propose 20 possible homeownership units on open land facing the river at Q Terrace. HANH originally planned to build new homes for people to buy as part of the Q Terrace re-do. But those homes that site were never built due to the downturn in the real estate market. Now, under the banner of the Farnam project, they may pop up after all.