Glendower Group renderings
63 new apartments approved for 201 Hazel ...
... and 50 senior dwellings approved for 34 Level.
The City Plan Commission signed off on 162 new mostly affordable apartments to be built in Newhallville, West Rock, and Whalley — as part of three more new-construction projects involving the housing authority’s nonprofit development affiliate, the Glendower Group.
Local land use commissioners took those unanimous votes of approval this past Wednesday during the latest monthly online meeting of the City Plan Commission.
The commissioners approved site plans for:
• A three-story, 50-unit elderly housing facility at 34 Level St. in the West Rock neighborhood. The complex — funded in part by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Section 202 program — will include 47 one-bedroom apartments, three two-bedroom apartments, and 27 on-site parking spaces. All of the units will be set aside for tenants making a maximum of 60 percent of the Area Median Income (AMI), or $48,780 for a one-person household in 2024.
• A three-story, 63-unit apartment building at 201 Hazel St. in Newhallville. The complex will include a mix of one‑, two‑, three‑, and four-bedroom apartments, and will have 41 on-site parking spaces. Eighty percent of the apartments will be rented out to tenants making no more than 30 to 60 percent AMI; the remaining 20 percent will be rented out at market rates.
• A five-story, 49-unit apartment building with groundfloor commercial space at 117 and 129 Whalley Ave., 10 Dickerman St., and 34 and 36 Sperry St. Glendower is building this long-in-the-works project in partnership with the St. Luke’s Development Corporation. All but a handful of these apartments will be rented out to tenants making no more than 50 percent AMI. (The City Plan Commission last approved this mixed-use development in March 2023. Since then, the project has gone from six floors to five and from 55 apartments to 49, in order to cut down on costs.)
“You keep hearing me saying ‘I’m really excited about this project,’ ” Glendower Vice President of Development Edward LaChance said at the start of his agency’s third new-housing pitch of the night to the City Plan Commission. “But I’m really excited about this project.”
“You’re three for three tonight,” City Plan Commissioner and Westville Alder Adam Marchand said after Glendower had wracked up three approvals for these three different building projects. “Good job.”
Wednesday’s approvals marked just the latest examples of the housing authority ambitiously pursuing new construction projects as it seeks to address the city’s affordable housing crunch. They come as the agency is also looking to build lots more new apartments at the former Church Street South site across from Union Station, at the former Hamilton Street clock factory site, atop a surface parking lot on George Street in the 9th Square, and on the Quinnipiac River in Fair Haven Heights, among other places.