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Alder Smith, U.S. Sen. Blumenthal, Board Chair Kilpatrick, and Interim Director Draughn: With Biden bucks, "use it or lose it."
Eco-friendly housing planned for 34 Level.
Three electric vehicle charging stations, 4,000 square feet of rooftop solar, and energy-efficient appliances will be built into an entirely electrified affordable senior apartment complex in West Rock — thanks to a newly secured $450,000 federal grant.
U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, Elm City Communities Interim President Shenae Draughn, and West Rock/West Hills Alder Honda Smith celebrated that grant Monday morning during a press conference held in the third-floor board room of the public housing authority’s headquarters at 360 Orange St.
That $450,000 grant comes thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), a landmark (misnamed) $380-to-$800 billion climate-change-fighting bill from 2022.
It will go towards a 50-unit apartment complex for seniors to be built by the housing authority at 34 Level St. 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.
“We have a lot of funding through the Inflation Reduction Act, a huge step toward energy efficiency at the national level,” Blumenthal said on Monday. “We need to get these resources out the door … [and] shovels in the ground. … We face an administration that may be hostile to these goals of housing and energy efficiency.”
So, Blumenthal stressed about these funds: “Use it or lose it. That’s the mantra.”
This particular grant comes from the IRA’s Green and Resilient Retrofit Program, which a handout by the housing authority on Monday describes as “the first HUD program to simultaneously invest in utility efficiency, carbon reduction, renewable energy generation, and climate resilience strategies in multifamily housing.”
To quote directly from a one-page review of the grant, these eco-friendly federal funds will support at 34 Level:
• Creating an enhanced, energy efficient building enclosure.
• Energy Star appliances and HVAC equipment to minimize utility use and cost.
• Electric vehicle charging stations to encourage electric vehicle use.
• A 4,000 square-foot rooftop photovoltaic array to reduce dependency on the grid and to save resident utility expenses.
• Full building electrification
That same one-pager states that the development should cost $28.1 million in total to build. The project’s financing includes $3.7 million in HUD 202 Supportive Housing, $999,000 in state brownfield remediation grant dollars, $3.5 million in Elm City Communities Mote to Work funds, $4 million from the state Department of Housing, $10.8 million in Low Income Housing Tax Credits, and $3.1 million in private financing, among other sources.
Draughn said that said that construction should begin in the second quarter of 2025. Construction should be complete by September 2026, and the building should be fully occupied by the end of 2026.