Developer Jay Hakimian (center) at Tuesday's groundbreaking.
An $18 million infusion to a long-stalled downtown development means that 96 new apartments will finally soon rise at the site of the ex-Harold’s Bridal Shop — the latest step in a builder’s journey that began with a love for Louis Kahn’s architecture.
Renderings for the future of the Church Street South site, including a "central green" pictured here, were revealed...
Laura Glesby Photo
...at a packed meeting on Thursday.
Townhomes shift into high-rises as the buildings transition from the Hill to Downtown, anchored by a “central green.” In the mix is a coffee kiosk, an outdoor theater, and a pedestrian promenade.
A team of architects and designers sketched out those ideas on Thursday for a future mixed-use, mixed-income development at the vacant site of the former Church Street South housing complex and the current Robert T. Wolfe public housing apartments.
LCI Director Liam Brennan (center), with deputies Mark Stroud and Frank D'Amore: Time to "streamline all these processes, so that they conform more to what we think public expectations are."
Landlord fines for housing code violations are on track to jump from $250 apiece to up to $2,000 a day — thanks to a state-enabled local law newly endorsed by an aldermanic committee.
Joel Nieves, staying at Rosette for now: "I'm not alone anymore."
With the help of an extension cord providing power to his CPAP machine, Joel Nieves is still living in a tiny shelter on a Rosette Street backyard — two months after the city ordered the power turned off for him and his unhoused neighbors.
In that same time, the Elicker administration has also offered Nieves a new, more permanent place to stay, along with security deposit help.
The problem for Nieves — which has led him to turn down that housing help — is that the replacement apartment is two towns away, in Branford.
Ward 3 alder candidate Angel Hubbard kicks off the campaign launch: “I will never judge anyone for having an addiction. We do need programs.”
Rafael Rodriguez and Steven Fontanez (right) are working hard to help themselves and others out of addiction, as they told Hubbard, Valerie Boyd, and Justin Elicker.
Steven Fontanez is running out of time. He has only a few days left to stay at a sober housing program, and he hasn’t had luck finding an apartment.
Giselle Orosco is running out of patience. She’s tired of guessing whether the people who lie down outside her house are overdosing or merely asleep.
Angel Hubbard is running to be an alder for them both.
Liam Brennan: Looking for enforcement mechanisms "everywhere we can."
With hopes of building a faster housing code inspection system with more teeth, the Livable City Initiative (LCI) under its new director is moving away from the courthouse and toward municipal fines.
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Dereen Shirnekhi |
Aug 28, 2024 3:38 pm
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Jim Farrales and Nancy Navarretta: This center is the "first of its kind" in the state.
The city’s non-cop crisis response team now has a central location on Winthrop Avenue where first responders can bring adults who need short-term help for substance use and mental health challenges — while keeping them out of hospitals.
Soon after she moved into a rental in Fair Haven in the winter of 2022, Stella Damoah realized the heat didn’t work and the landlord couldn’t, or wouldn’t, fix it. She looked around for another place and found studio apartments starting at $1,800 and one-bedrooms for well beyond that. So she opted for space heaters, adding about $600 to her expenses.
“That was when I made up my mind to look for a place to own,” said Damoah in a recent Zoom interview.
Following an almost two-year odyssey, Damoah, an accountant who came to Connecticut from her native Ghana in 2005 to pursue a master’s degree at the University of New Haven, will close on a home in Naugatuck next month.
A plan to build 50 new affordable apartments for seniors in West Rock took a key step forward, as alders endorsed a 39-year tax-break deal for the housing authority development to-be.
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Thomas Breen |
Aug 19, 2024 3:37 pm
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67 Winchester: Now approved for expansion.
A plan to build new bedrooms atop a derelict Winchester Avenue home’s backyard won approval the second time around — after calls for more, quality housing beat out concerns about neighborhood change.
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Thomas Breen |
Aug 19, 2024 2:14 pm
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402 Crown St.: 2 apartments, coming up?
A vacant former Crown Street car rental center is slated to become two new apartments — after the landlord’s attorney explained that now is not the best financial time to knock down the commercial structure and build a big new building in its stead.
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Maya McFadden |
Aug 12, 2024 1:52 pm
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Edgewood neighbors Charlie Nixon and Julie Jaus meet with Alder Hamilton (second from right): When do we have to go?
Edgewood tenants turned to their neighborhood alder for help from potential mass evictions precipitated by the sell-off of rental properties owned by nonprofits controlled by incarcerated sex offender Rabbi Daniel Greer.
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Laura Glesby |
Aug 9, 2024 2:30 pm
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Abdul Osmanu, Steve Winter, and Tarolyn Moore after the debate.
“Like Abdul just said…”
“I do kind of agree with Steve…”
“Tarolyn’s exactly right…”
“My answer was what he said!”
Phrases like these were heard frequently at a political debate on Thursday evening, where three state representative candidates agreed more than they disagreed on issues such as tenants’ rights, income inequality, teacher pay, and the role of deep listening in politics.
Kiki Moreno and Fernando Morales: Formerly homeless, currently calling for better shelter hours.
Upon This Rock to revive the Grand Avenue shelter.
One of the city’s go-to homeless shelter contractors is slated to revive a shuttered 65-bed facility on Grand Avenue, with case management and healthcare services on site.
Alders voted to allocate $500,000 toward that effort — part of just over $1 million approved on Monday evening for helping people with nowhere else to go.
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Allan Appel |
Aug 5, 2024 12:35 pm
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The Strong School.
The plan to turn the vacant old Strong School at 69 Grand Ave. into 58 affordable, artist and LGBTQ-friendly apartments is moving ahead, if a little more slowly than anticipated.
New LCI head Liam Brennan and former LCI head, new housing development czar Arlevia Samuel.
Former mayoral challenger Liam Brennan will have the chance to enact the “philosophy sea change” he called for last year in the Livable City Initiative (LCI) — as the department’s new director starting Monday.
Meanwhile, current LCI Director Arlevia Samuel is moving to a new position in the city focused on spurring affordable housing development.
The apartment-less Grand Ave. property on Tuesday.
(Updated) A lawsuit by a pair of Wooster Square neighbors concerned about backyard shade is jeopardizing plans to transform a series of abandoned Grand Avenue commercial buildings into 112 new places to live.
Here comes the neighborhood: Potential buildings to come (in white) to transform the Ninth Square. (Cafe 9 is at center near bottom.)
Housing authority head Karen DuBois-Walton: "We need to be building more housing. That is how we move forward."
Builders are ready to un-pave parking lots — and erect hundreds of new mixed-income apartments downtown.
Two dozen officials announced that news Tuesday afternoon alongside developers during a press conference heralding newly inked agreements to redevelop a car-centric stretch of State and George streets.
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Arthur Delot-Vilain |
Jul 29, 2024 10:15 am
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Sale pending at Greer nonprofit-owned 193 Maple St.
Arthur Delot-Vilain photo
Nixon, Oliver, and Jaus: Putting up a fight.
Blindsided.
That’s the word tenants are using to describe how they feel as incarcerated sex offender Rabbi Daniel Greer’s nonprofits seek to sell off a host of multi-family houses in the Edgewood neighborhood — leaving those renters worried about potential orders to move, and prompting them to start organizing to protect their positions at a time of uncertainty.
When winds blow in from the Sound, windows sometimes pop open at the Towers senior complex. Now $20 million is blowing in to replace windows, roofs, and HVAC systems.
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Arthur Delot-Vilain |
Jul 22, 2024 3:19 pm
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Housing Authority prez Karen DuBois-Walton: "A lot of possibilities now."
After losing out to another bidder at a previous foreclosure auction, the Housing Authority of New Haven (HANH) became the third part-owner of a former co-op’s homes in Dixwell.
One hundred and sixty eight more apartments took a big step closer to coming to Wooster Square, after the project’s new co-development team won permission to modify a plan last approved in 2021.
Joel Nieves, next to his CPAP machine: “I feel safe right here."
Joel Nieves woke up in his tiny backyard home on Rosette Street Thursday morning and noticed the air was warm — too warm.
At 9:24 a.m., at the Elicker administration’s behest, United Illuminating (UI) shut off the power to six pre-fab shelters, including the one that Nieves has been living out of.
With the temperature rising and his air conditioner now off, Nieves immediately thought about his CPAP machine, which he uses to sleep at night.
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Arthur Delot-Vilain |
Jul 17, 2024 2:55 pm
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Emerson Tenants Union members RJ Hinds, Stephanie Perez, Alexander Kolokotronis, Yvonne Byrd-Griffin, and James Blau: On the losing end of Tuesday's Fair Rent rulings.
“Because.”
That was the key word in the Fair Rent Commission’s rejection of a host of tenants union retaliation complaints, on the grounds that the Emerson Apartments’ new landlord had done no legal wrong in not renewing their leases.