Church Street South Endgame: Raze, Rebuild

The owner of Church Street South almost reached a deal with the city two years ago to demolish the crumbling subsidized apartment complex across from Union Station to build a bigger, more diverse development. Now it would like a second chance.

Some decision-makers might want to see someone else do the job.

Either way, that’s the endgame of the current maneuvering over the 301-apartment complex, the plight of which has bedeviled the city for years.

The short-term game involves pressuring the owner, Newton, Mass.-based Northland Investment Corp., to make repairs to the apartments so people can live there safely. For years city inspectors have chased after the owners, who receive $3 million a year in Section 8 rent subsidies from the federal government. The owners have patched roofs and made other slapdash repairs that saw the same apartment condemned again when water and mold returned, while structural problems worsened.

After 30 fresh orders from the city, backed by pending legal challenges from tenants represented by legal aid, Northland promised this week to make repairs again, and roofing and electrical crews appeared on site (pictured) Thursday. In the past two weeks, the city has condemned four and a half apartments and ordered Northland to put up four families and a single adult in area hotels.

Longer term, people on all sides — the city, neighbors, the owner — agree the 46-year-old concrete-clustered complex, nicknamed ​“Cinderblock City” and ​“The Jungle,” needs to come down. The question is what should replace it, and who should build it. And what should happen to the 834 people who officially live there. (The true number is believed to be over 1,000.)

DeStefano’s ​“Regret”

In the waning days of the DeStefano administration, the city was close to a deal with Northland to demolish the complex, then spend $361 million constructing an 800-unit development.

The city and Northland had agreed to the terms of the deal in a memorandum of understanding as far back as Jan. 2012, according to Lawrence Gottesdiener, Northland’s chairman of the board.

He told the Independent that he and City Hall had agreed that 20 percent of the apartments would remain ​“affordable.” One hundred sixty of the Church Street South families would have a ​“right to return” to them. ​“The city and Northland agreed to work with all the residents to find interim and permanent housing,” Gottesdiener said.

Then, he said, ​“at the 11th hour, Northland was informed that political support was not there from the alderman, unless the affordable housing component was increased to 28 percent.”

“Unfortunately,” he continued, ​“that change made the complicated development impossible to finance.” Northland had invested $1 to $2 million and ​“thousands of man hours” on the planning.

Former Mayor John DeStefano said he recalls the deal falling apart more gradually. ​“My recollection is we went back and forth,” he said.

Northland ​“genuinely wanted to come up with a deal,” DeStefano said. The two sides sought to break the project into two phases so it could get started, but still couldn’t finalize the deal.

DeStefano agreed the affordable housing formula was a key reason. He said the city had planned to contribute some money for ​“infrastructure” and the housing authority’s development arm, Glendower, ​“was at the table as an equity partner.”

Failing to rebuild Church Street South ​“is one of my regrets,” the former mayor said.

A Round 2?

Gottesdiener (pictured)said Northland is still interested in pursuing a new version of the deal.

The company ​“would like to try again to build consensus for a redevelopment that is responsive to the Hill-to-Downtown planning initiative and is sensitive to the families that live at Church Street South today and would like to return,” he said.

That was Gottesdiener intention when he bought Church Street South in 2008. On a drive around town, then-mayor DeStefano showed him the old Coliseum site. (For years DeStefano’s team would negotiate with Northland to build a new project there, but the recession squashed that arrangement.) DeStefano also showed Gottesdiener Church Street South on that drive. He said the rundown place needed to come down, that a bigger, mixed-income development needed to take its place across from the station, part of a new push for ​“transit-oriented development” (aka ​“TOD”).

That was music to Gottesdiener’s ears. He had started his company as Essex Partners in 1991, then bought Northland in 1997. The company doesn’t own fully subsidized properties like Church Street South; it specializes in market-rate housing. Most of its 22,400 housing units are market rate (like the Hartford 21 luxury tower). But it does own mixed-income projects — some with 10 or 20 percent affordable housing. And it has embraced TOD, with projects like one it’s building outside the Waltham, Mass., train station (with 10 percent affordable apartments).

“I bought it,” he said, ​“to build something better there.”

Instead, it has poured $4.6 million into repairs just to keep it up in its current state, Gottensdiener said. He said the company will continue spending money for necessary repairs. But like some city officials, like DeStefano, he argued that complex has outlived its useful life. ​“It’s obsolete,” he said. ​“It’s a losing battle.”

Mayor Toni Harp said she too wants to see a mixed-use, mixed-income complex built at the property that fits in with the ​“transit-oriented development” planned for the broader Hill-to-Downtown corridor. She said the city would be committed to finding comparable subsidized housing for all displaced Church Street South tenants.

For instance, the administration would like to see some of the tenants relocated to the new apartments envisioned for a $100-$150 million proposed development under negotiation to be constructed blocks away with builder Randy Salvatore. The project would not be seen as the location for all of the displaced Church Street South tenants. (Asked Wednesday night about including subsidized housing in the mix, Salvatore said he’s open to all ideas for the project, which remains a work in progress.)

“It’s right here at [one of] the busiest train stations in the United States,” Harp said of Church Street South. ​“It is old and appears blighted. I think the ideal thing is to build new there.”

But not necessarily with Northland doing the building, she said, given its recent track record.

“They have been derelict and negligent,” Harp said.

She said Northland must ​“make it safe for those who live there” now before the city considers any deals about future development.

Another change from two years ago: The neighborhood, concerned about gentrification, has made it clear it will not support only 20 percent affordable housing at the development. Based on neighbors’ input, the city’s Hill-to-Downtown plan for the area’s development calls for a minimum of 30 percent affordable housing at a rebuilt Church Street South. (Click here to read about one 2013 planning session, pictured, at which neighbors weighed in on the complex’s future.)

Serena Neal-Sanjurjo, head of the Livable City Initiative (LCI), said the city will ​“hold” to that ​“at least 30 percent” figure in any negotiations over a rebuilt Church Street South. She added that officials have not discussed next-stage development with Northland.

If the city does, it should make sure its ​“development agenda does not shortchange the tenants’ rights,” remarked Amy Marx (at right in photo with client Laynette Del Hoyo), the legal aid attorney representing a growing number of households battling leaks, mold, and crumbling walls and ceilings. ​“There must be no delays nor lenient enforcement, as the city negotiates with Northland over possible development plans. In addition, any development plan must take the tenants’ rights to relocation and return into account.” The city’s development administrator, Matthew Nemerson, was present this week in discussions with a Northland vice-president about conditions at the complex.

Hill Alder Dolores Colon, who represents Church Street South, called herself ​“ambivalent” about the prospect of Northland controlling the property’s future as developer of a new complex.

“On their website, they have lots of luxury housing. They know how to do tasteful, decent, stable housing,” she said.

On the other hand, ​“what they have down at Church Street South is criminal,” Colon continued. ​“Maybe,” she said, the city should ​“make them swear on a stack of bibles” to do better.

Big Dreams, Bigger Disappointments

New Haven has been dreaming big about Church Street South for 70 years (Read here about how architects and city planners reimagined Union Station and Church Street South back in March.). For over 50 years, a produce market occupied the land. Late Mayor Richard C. Lee once described the market this way: ​“a tangle of stress, often so congested that normal business was impossible. Most business was conducted from the tailgates of trucks. This was a truck market in every sense of the word, with little tax return to the City and few permanent jobs. The buildings that were used were obsolete and inefficient, relics of a bygone age. Streets were too often littered with refuse and filth and infested with rats and vermin. This was the sight that greeted visitors to New Haven as they left the railroad station. One can hardly imagine a less impressive entrance to a city.”

That quotation came from ​“A Nowhere Between Two Somewheres: The Church Street South Project and Urban Renewal in New Haven,” a 2012 academic paper written at Yale by Emily Dominiski. The paper details how the city’s original plan was to build ​“New Haven’s Fifth Avenue” there to connect Union Station to downtown. By 1965 it had evolved into a plan for luxury housing. Then, amid public pressure for more low-income housing, the city switched the plan to a co-op for lower-income families.

Even that idea got watered down. Initially the city was going to create a co-op with a federal loan under the federal 221(d)(3) program, which created the Florence Virtue Homes and Dwight Gardens, among other communities across town. That program required a not-for-profit organization to serve as sponsor. The Jaycees signed on. Then they signed off.

The eventual project became a straight-up, privately-owned complex for poor people, supported by federal money. Architect Charles Moore designed the series of three and four-story concrete collections of duplexes linked by pedestrian paths. He included apartments for large families, up to five bedrooms; New Haven now has a shortage of such apartments.

Moore made a fatal philosophical error, however, in the view of New Haven’s current City Plan Director Karyn Gilvarg (pictured): He pursued an ​“Italian Hill Village” design, ​“with narrow pedestrian streets, joining up in plazas,” not designed for cars. That works great in Italian villages, Gilvarg said. It doesn’t work ​“in a monolithic” dense urban low-income housing complex. The pathways became drug hot spots where dealers shot out lights and cops had trouble gaining quick access. Church Street South became known for crack gangs like The Jungle Boys, who became targets of federal drug sweeps. To this day it remains one of the most crime-ridden spots in New Haven.

Babz Rawls-Ivy, who grew up in Church Street South in its early days, remembers a successful community where families moved up from poorer surroundings. She said the complex did work, but even as a child she understood that the city at large didn’t want low-income families of color living across from the train station. She remembers realizing: ​“Well, you can tolerate poor white people. You don’t want to see poor black people.” (Rawls-Ivy, the managing editor of the Inner-City News and host of WNHH radio’s ​“LoveBabz” program, is a former alder; she spoke about Church Street South in two on-air discussions ( one beginning at 19:30 in this audio file, the other beginning at 52 in this file.)

Rawls-Ivy disagreed with the argument that the ​“Italian Hill Village” approach or high density explains Church Street South’s demise. The management and the tenants were responsible over the years.

“I thought the design was amazing,” she said of her time growing up there. ​“It fostered a sense of community. There were trees and grass; nobody could drive through.”

Church Street South went through a succession of owners, including one, Community Builders, that promised to add social service support to help families thrive in the development. All the plans failed. Northland swooped in on the project in 2008 with dreams of creating successful downtown developments, not just there, but at the old Coliseum site. Instead, it became the area’s newest slumlord.

Tall Order

Now, Gilvarg said, echoing Lawrence Gottesdiener, Church Street South has reached ​“the end of its useful life. That project has been beat. It really needs to be redeveloped with the residents’ right to remain in decent safe affordable housing preserved.”

How to get there will involve a dance with Northland, whether or not it ends up serving as developer.

It owns the property. The city can’t force it to sell.

The city theoretically could convince the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to withdraw the company’s $3 million annual Section 8 subsidy lifeline. That would be an uphill effort. It could take years.

Even if those subsidies evaporated, Northland could theoretically pursue a completely market-rate plan, given the hot market for rental housing in New Haven and the project’s proximity to Union Station. But any developer needs cooperation from city government, especially on a complicated project that could involve regulatory approvals. The city could make a building project too difficult to pursue.

Beyond the players involved, a rebuilding project itself is complicated. The city has a shortage of the three- and four-bedroom apartments prevalent (although they tend to include small bedrooms) at Church Street South. The tenants won’t disappear. Their ​“right of return,” or at least to obtain safe housing elsewhere, will remain high on the public agenda.

“There are lots of challenges for everybody here,” DeStefano observed. ​“You can’t just shut it down. It’s a community…. [and] our quantity of apartments for larger families in the Hill is limited.”

On the other hand, he noted, ​“folks shouldn’t be living in those conditions” as they exist now across from Union Station. New Haven has reached consensus on that question — which means, challenges aside, it will struggle to get Church Street South’s next incarnation right.

Previous coverage:

• Flooding Plagues Once-Condemned Apartment
• Church Street South Hit With 30 New Orders
• Complaints Mount Against Church Street South
• City Cracks Down On Church Street South, Again
• Complex Flunks Fed Inspection, Rakes In Fed $$
• Welcome Home — To Frozen Pipes
• City Spotted Deadly Dangers; Feds Gave OK
• No One Called 911
• ​“New” Church Street South Goes Nowhere Fast
• Church Street South Tenants Organize