Coliseum Plan Sparks ​“Affordability” Debate

Should a new two-bedroom apartment that costs $2,030 a month really be called ​“affordable”? What about a new studio apartment that costs $750 a month, and is subsidized by public low-income housing dollars?

And is any type of reduced-rent living better than the surface parking lot that currently swallows four acres of the Ninth Square?

Those were among the affordable housing-related questions raised Thursday night during a two-and-a-half hour online community conversation about the planned new Coliseum site redevelopment.

The virtual meeting took place on Zoom, and was organized by the city Economic Development Administration, the Norwalk-based builder Spinnaker Real Estate Partners, and the Downtown-Wooster Square and Hill South Community Management Teams. The city has contracted with Spinnaker to build the development.

“Those are just not sustainable rents for working people in New Haven,” Wooster Square Alder Ellen Cupo said about both the proposed market-rate rents and the proposed ​“affordable” set asides planned for the new mini-city of apartments, shops and publicly accessible open space to be built on the former Coliseum site. That’s the 4.46-acre surface parking lot bounded by Orange Street, George Street, State Street, and a now-closed portion of North Frontage Road.

East Rock resident Kevin McCarthy agreed. These ​“affordable” rents may technically meet the requirements of the city’s agreement with Spinnaker, he said. ​“But they’re not affordable as most city residents understand that term. It’s not helpful to refer to them as affordable given that.”

Thursday’s meeting came less than two weeks after Spinnaker and its investment partner, The Fieber Group, formally submitted to the city a site plan for the first part of the first phase of the long vacant site’s redevelopment.

That phase will include the construction of a new seven-story, 200-unit apartment building at Orange Street and George Street, 16,550 square feet of new retail and restaurant space in that same building, a 36-space parking garage, a 16,350 square foot public plaza, and a ​“retail laneway” cutting east-west through the site.

And that’s all just the first part of the first phase of the planned redevelopment. Ultimately, Spinnaker and Fieber, which last year took over the 2013 Development and Land Disposition Agreement (DLDA) for the former Coliseum site from a Montreal-based firm that failed to get the project off the ground, plan to build between 500 and 700 apartments on the site, along with tens of thousands of square feet of new retail, office, and, potentially, lab space.

Thursday’s presentation by Spinnaker Vice President Frank Caico (pictured) and the development team’s designers, engineers, and landscape architects included new renderings of the proposed development as well as details on the architecture, public plaza, and laneway.

Much of the community conversation, focused on the required affordable set asides within the planned new apartment building. The affordability — or lack thereof, according to some critics — has been a central point of contention among neighbors looking to bring the developer’s reduced-rent units down to the realities faced by most New Haven renters.

City Economic Development Administrator Mike Piscitelli said that roughly 25,000 households in this city are ​“rent burdened.” That means they pay more than 30 percent of their annual income on rent.

“You and every development is going to feel the pressure” from community questions about affordability, he pointed out to Spinnaker. ​“We’re going to hear this at every meeting with every project, given the magnitude of the problem.”

“100 Or Below”

Caico and his firm’s newly hired affordable housing consultant, Jenifer Svelnys, told the group that the DLDA requires Spinnaker to set aside 20 percent of all apartments built at the former Coliseum site at ​“affordable rents.”

The DLDA defines that term as between 50 and 120 percent of the area median income (AMI). Caico and Svelnys announced Thursday that the developer would be capping its affordable apartment rentals for those earning between 50 and 100 percent AMI.

“We’re no longer going to 120,” Svelnys said. ​“We’re going to be at 100 or below.”

She and Caico also said that the developer plans to set aside half of the affordable units in the 200-unit building — so, 20 out of the planned 40 — for renters making between 50 and 60 percent AMI. The remaining affordable units would be reserved for renters earning between 60 and 100 percent AMI. That ​“deeper” affordability for the first 20 units is contingent upon the developer securing local, state and/or federal subsidies, Caico and Svelnys said.

Svelnys then talked the group through what those percentage requirements translate to in real dollars and actual potential rents (see table above).

She said that, depending on the availability of city, state and federal subsidies, the ​“affordable” studio apartments could range from $750 to $1,289 in monthly rents. The ​“affordable” one-bedrooms could range from $752 to $1,714 in monthly rents. The ​“affordable” two-bedrooms could range from $875 to $2,030.

All of these proposed rents are based off a regional AMI calculated by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). The AMI refers to the median of household incomes in a given region — half of families in the area make more than that amount per year, and half less. The 2020 AMI for the New Haven-Meriden metro area for a family of four is $91,200. That area includes New Haven, Bethany, Branford, Cheshire, East Haven, Guilford, Hamden, Madison, Meriden, North Branford, North Haven, Orange, Wallingford, West Haven, and Woodbridge.

Svelnys said that, a one-person household making $36,000 per year — a ​“50 percenter,” or someone making 50 percent of the AMI — would qualify for a rent at the new planned Coliseum apartments of $752 for a studio. She said the market rate for that same apartment would otherwise be between $1,500 and $1,800.

As another example, a three-person household making $56,000 a year — or 60 percent AMI — would qualify for a $1,106 two-bedroom apartment at the Coliseum building. That’s compared to a market rate of $3,400 to $3,700 for that same unit.

She said these affordable rents would make up no more than 30 percent of household income — an industry standard for determining affordability, she said. And they would be reduced to allow for the added cost of heat, electricity, and other utilities.

“All affordable units will be leased throughout the building,” Svelnys said. ​“All will be furnished with the same finishes and will be identical to the market units, and will have the same exact square footage.”

Affordable For Whom?

After Svelnys’s presentation, many of the subsequent questions from attendees zeroed in on how those affordable rents were calculated and whether or not they are truly ​“affordable” for New Haven renters.

“We both have full-time union jobs and it’s not something we could afford,” Jamie Georgelos (pictured at right) said. ​“I’m wondering what this looks like for the populace of New Haven?” Particularly for those buried in student debt, she said, who cannot necessarily afford to spend 30 percent of their income on housing.

Svelnys said again that the 30 percent threshold is an industry standard for determining housing affordability. She also pointed to the lower end of the rents for some of the more deeply affordable units in the project — such as $752 for a one-bedroom, for those making 50 percent AMI — and asked if that struck Georgelos as too much of a lift.

Georgelos said that rent looked quite affordable compared to some of the others presented Thursday.

Nevertheless, she added, ​“I think we can probably do better,” in regards to Spinnaker providing even more affordable units at even lower rates throughout the complex.

A woman named Emma, who did not give her last name, said that she works with people who are primarily on Social Security and end up bringing in between $8,000 and $12,000 per year. ​“Is there a sliding scale for the affordable units that are allotted?” she asked.

Svelnys said that people earning that little income a year would probably have to seek out a portable Section 8 public housing subsidy voucher in order to live in an apartment complex like the planned Coliseum site.

She said such a voucher would likely not be sufficient for covering the rent at one of the market-rate units, but would likely cover the rent for an ​“affordable” unit.

“If they were able to get a Section 8, that would help,” she said.

Urban Design League’s Anstress Farwell asked why the developer is using the regional AMI, and not a more New Haven-specific number, when calculating affordability.

Svelnys replied that the regional AMI as defined by HUD is, again, an industry standard for determining affordability.

“There is no published micro-New Haven block median income information,” she said. She said she had been consulting on affordable housing development for 20 years. ​“We base all of our affordability on published HUD” numbers.

Farwell also asked about how the market rate rents were set. How can a 390 square-foot studio apartment be rented out at $1,500 to $1,800 a month? She said that’s the going rate for market-rent one-bedroom apartments in Wooster Square.

Caico said that his firm determined the market rent ranges by looking at comparable developments throughout the city. ​“The data is based on the local market and similar developments, newer developments, like what we’re proposing here for this first building in Phase 1.”

Cupo (pictured) said that therein lies the problem. Looking at comparable rents at the Corsair and the Novella and Spinnaker’s Audubon Square will only lead to rent inflation, she said, ​“because those rents are not sustainable to begin with.”

She said that New Haveners need to make on average $25 an hour, or $50,000 a year, to afford a two-bedroom apartment in the city. ​“The median household income in New Haven falls short of $37,000,” she said. ​“I just double down on Jamie’s insistence that we do better for this city.”

“This is our goal,” Caico said about the affordable set asides presented Thursday. ​“We hope to do better.” And at a minimum, per the DLDA, 20 percent of the units have to be set aside at ​“affordable” rates.

Why do the deeply affordable apartments have to be contingent on Spinnaker getting public subsidies? asked Downtown-Wooster Square Community Management Team Chair Caroline Smith. Why can’t Spinnaker cover these more affordable rents — the ones reserved for people earning 50 to 60 percent AMI — with their own funds?

“The 50 to 60 percent is a deeply discounted rental rate,” Caico said. ​“It’s difficult to achieve. Because those rents are discounted, you’re basically having to subsidize a unit that costs quite a bit more to build.”

He said public subsidies provide necessary ​“gap financing” to make up the difference between the build and maintenance costs and the rent charged.

“You have to be able to bridge that gap to subsidize the affordable units, or else the whole deal just doesn’t pencil, and then unfortunately nothing gets built.”

At the end of the night, Win Davis, the executive director of the Town Green Special Services District, asked Caico to clarify exactly how many apartments would be included in the total project, nd how many would be below market-rate in some fashion.

Caico said the total project does envision 500 to 700 new apartments. Meaning that between 100 and 140 reduce rate units would be built atop the current surface parking lot that used to house the Coliseum.