Paul Bass Photo
Morrison at Monday night’s meeting: Monterey’s low-income housing “doesn’t look like ‘low-income housing.’”
A developer won a 20-year tax break worth over $10 million — with a proviso that keeps track of whether low-income renters benefit.
The Board of Alders unanimously voted to approve the 20-year break Monday night.
Public housing, New Haven, 2016.
It comes in the form of a 20-year extension of the soon-to-expire tax abatements given Boston-based Beacon Corcoran SP Jennison (aka “BCJ”) for the 399-unit Monterey Place public-housing development it owns and rents to subsidized tenants in Dixwell.
BCJ said it needed the extension for Monterey to qualify for a new form of federal rental subsidies that will generate enough income to keep the development in good shape. Tenants and public-housing and elected officials supported the ask.
“They have done a phenomenal job in making sure low-income housing doesn’t look like ‘low-income housing,’” Dixwell Alder Jeanette Morrison said before the vote Monday night. “This will allow our residents to live in a place they can be proud of.”
The company paid a little over $100,000 in taxes on five key properties at Monterey in 2014. Their tax bill this year would be over $500,000 without the breaks. (See chart.)
An amendment passed Monday night requires BCJ to report annually to an alder-created review committee using LISHTA (Low Income and Supportive Housing Tax Abatements Committee) standards. The point of the review is to ensure that the tax breaks are being used to maintain the development for the benefit of low-income renters as promised, said Serena Neal-Sanjurjo, executive director of local government’s neighborhoods anti-blight agency, the Livable City Initiative (LCI).
Clocks & Drivers
David Yaffe-Bellany Photo
James: Ready to roll.
In other business Monday night, the alders voted to accept another $100,000 state grant to do environmental testing at the old Clock Factory at 133 Hamilton St. in hopes of arranging a sale of the property to a developer who’d renovate it “for residential or commercial use.” The state already sent $200,000 to the city for an environmental assessment there, to determine the scope of needed environmental remediation. The new money will enable New Haven to conduct radium testing.
The alders also voted to make a downtown zoning ordinance text amendment change to allow for classroom-only driving schools to operate there. The vote also allows school operators to seek special permits to run full-scale scales, including on-road driving.
The amendment, cosponsored by Downtown Alder Alberta Witherspoon and Beaver Hills Alder Richard Furlow, allows Tyronda James to open an “affordable” downtown school. This previous story details her plans.