Paul Bass Photo
Beulah is looking to replicate on Munson Street and Dixwell Avenue the success it had with houses like this one, on Orchard Street.
Another builder is looking to bring new apartments to the Newhallville-Dixwell border — and this time they’d all be affordable.
The builder, the faith-based not-for-profit Beulah Land Development Corporation, unveiled its new plans at Thursday night’s monthly meeting of the Dixwell Community Management Team at Dr. Reginald Mayo Early Childhood School.
Beulah Land is affiliated with Beulah Heights Pentecostal Church on Orchard Street near Munson. Under the direction of Bishop Theodore Brooks, the church responded to a crisis in the 1990s — the murder of a 7‑month-old baby shot dead by a crack dealer in an apartment next door — by transforming a block of crack houses into a community of quality homes for low-income and working families. (Read about that in the third section of this story.)
Now Beulah is looking to build three new projects in the neighborhood, Beulah’s Pastor Darrell Brooks told the management team Thursday night.
The first project, estimated to cost $840,000, would redevelop 232 Munson St. and a second nearby lot to quality housing for low-income residents. Brooks said this development would add five units of housing to the city’s housing stock.
The second project Brooks discussed, at 340 Dixwell Ave., would add 60 units of housing and cost about $14 million dollars. A third project, focusing on 722 and 684 Orchard St., would turn those properties into two multi-family homes.
Beulah has put together those plans at a time when people are calling for more affordable housing to match the explosion of new market-rate housing developments, including one soon to rise nearby at 201 Munson with 385 apartments.
Aneurin Canham-Clyne Photo
Darrell Brooks at Thursday night’s communitiy meeting.
“When people have to choose between food and rent, you have a problem,” Brooks said. Brooks said rising rents in the historically black neighborhood threaten to push out working people and families with multi-generational roots. He called affordable housing a backbone of stable communities.
The projects are at the early stages, Brooks said; no architectural renderings are yet available. Eventually, the 340 Dixwell project will need approval from the City Plan Commission. He said the Munson Street proposal might need zoning relief unless it can be included in relief granted recently to the 201 Munson project.
Brooks came to the Dixwell management meeting to seek neighborhood support for Beulah’s request to city for a $100,000 Community Development Block Grant to help support the Munson project.
“We welcome development, but it has to be responsible,” Brooks said, contrasting the 201 Munson project.
“Luxury living at affordable prices is our goal.”
The management team decided by an enthusiastic voice vote to support Beulah’s bid.
Management Team Chair Nina Silva said Brooks’ proposal fit into the theme of the meeting, which focused on community health and anti-blight efforts. New Ward 21 Alder Steven Winter voiced support for the Beulah plan and encouraged management team members to stay abreast of City Plan Commission site plan deliberations on 201 Munson to help ensure that project is integrated into the community.