Yash Roy Photo
On to the next 50: Lisa Zellman and Maggie Todd at Seabury bash.
Instead of a funeral or a reunion, Seabury Co-op’s community got to celebrate a birthday of survival — a half-century after opening.
Kids were able to bounce along and celebrate.
In 2019, it looked like all was lost for the housing cooperative at Elm and Howe Streets. Financial troubles had the co-op on the verge of defaulting and being foreclosed on. But the community rallied, converted the co-op’s 86 units to eligibility for federal Section 8 rental subsidies, and has regained its financial footing.
Saturday’s celebration was planned by Zernona Snow, a board member and eight-year resident, as a way to bring the community together.
“We’ve been through some really tough times, so our hope is that celebrations like this, which really haven’t happened in the past, will help the community become even stronger so that we can have another 50 years of Seabury,” said Snow. (Click here to read a 2019 story about how the co-op came back from the brink of staggering debts, and here to read a 2019 story about an employee who was stealing residents’ checks.)
A wave of coops formed with government help in New Haven a half century ago. Some of them — like the Dwight coops, Antillean Manor, Ethan Gardens, Trade Union Plaza — failed and were bought by private landlords. Some others, like Florence Virtue and Seabury, have held on.
The Seabury community has also set its eyes on a $6-$8 million redevelopment project over the next two to three years.
The celebration was held in the central green of the complex with a grill and a bouncy house for kids. Residents also cut a cake that read. “Happy 50th Birthday Seabury.”
Residents were eager to look to the future.
“Today’s a day of pride and celebration. I have been here for 46 years. There’s been a lot of change, but we’re still here,” said Maggie Todd. “The community has become a very good place to live for seniors like me because there are so many bus lines nearby and we’re close to downtown so people who work there can easily commute.”
“I’ve been here for about eight years now, and I’ve seen change. There are still issues with all of us being fully heard by the management team, but by and large this is a stable and safe place to live,” said Seabury resident Lisa Zellman.
The community is planning a gut-rehab to bring the complex “into the 21st century.”
According to Seabury Co-op board President Patricia Parks-Taylor, the community is still working on securing the funding for the project. The Co-op is looking for loans and grants from the state’s Department of Housing, the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the Connecticut Housing Finance Authority.
The management team’s representative and builder for this project, Al Gery, has already had plans drawn up, and the community is already working on redoing the roof. In 2019, Seabury secured a $500,000 pre-development loan from the Connecticut Green Bank to help organize a plan to get more financing going forward, to pay for design and architectural fees to lower electric costs, and to replace the buildings’ roofs and windows.
Redesign plans.
Seabury is also planning to hire a new management team. Residents including Parks-Taylor said the community believed it was time to move on from Faith Asset Management LLC. Parks-Taylor and Snow were thankful that the management team had helped the co-op move out of the red, but argued that there had been “breakdown in communications” thus necessitating a change in management.
“There have been issues with people truly being heard during the decision-making process,” said Zellman.