Kensington Rehab, Building $ In Place

The owner of Dwight’s sprawling Kensington Square development has the money to start building new apartments in a park and to begin a second phase of rehabbing existing apartments.

Kristin Anderson, project manager for the owner, Boston-based Community Builders, offered that update to the Dwight Central Management Team on Tuesday evening. She said to expect the work to begin in the winter.

When it’s all done, the 216-unit federally subsidized low-income development will have 223 apartments.

“Even though a lot is going on in this time of uncertainty, we maintain our commitment to full rehabilitations,” Anderson said.

The Plan

The project was one of seven in Connecticut to win federal low-income housing tax credits (LIHTC), the main source of funding for new affordable housing nationwide. Other New Haven developers submitted applications; The Community Builders was the only Elm City victor in this round.

As part of the LIHTC application, The Community Builders has guaranteed that all 103 apartments will stay affordable to people making 60 percent of area median income (AMI) or less. This cut-off equates to roughly $58,000 a year for a family of four. Around two-thirds of the apartments are more deeply subsidized.

The Community Builders completed rehabilitations of 21 of the small apartment buildings in the Kensington Street area in 2017. Some buildings got new coats of paint. Others got new bathrooms, roofs or brickwork.

This second phase involves a deeper level of rehab of the remaining buildings. There will be new floors, kitchens and bathrooms, Anderson said.

“That is based on input from residents and feedback from our management team. We are not just doing a light touch-up. The apartments really do need significant improvements,” Anderson said.

In addition, TCB has the funds to build the three-story, 15-unit apartment building that New Haven’s City Plan Commission approved last fall.

The developers plan to construct the apartments over what is now Kensington Park. In return, they have promised to build a new, smaller park on Garden Street and pay for city improvements to Day Street Park.

This new building will be held to the Passive House standard of energy efficiency. The well-insulated walls, solar panels and energy-efficient appliances will lower renters’ energy bills by around 75 percent, Anderson said.

The Renters

Kensington Square tenants interviewed Thursday said they welcome the planned upgrades

Dori-Ray Cash recalled talking to the landlords about apartment renovations. When Cash explained that the family would get to move back in after the upgrades, a niece in Cash’s living room said, ​“And you believe them?”

Standing in the doorway of another Kensington Square apartment, Herminio Rivera said that he has been living there for six years. He pointed to a broken light but said that the landlord has been fairly responsive to complaints. He said that he has not heard about the upgrades and would be excited to get a new floor. The tiles are broken, he said.

Sandibelle Molina also said that despite a responsive maintenance crew, her apartment building could use some serious upgrades. She said that her apartment has had a rat problem; she can sometimes hear them scratching in the walls. After living on Kensington Street for three years, she is ready to move, she said.

“The street is really hot. It has a lot of problems,” Molina said.

Kensington Square neighbor Pamela Morris held a different view of the neighborhood. She said that crime had calmed down on the block, with less shooting than in the past.

Morris, who lives in one of the buildings repainted in the first phase of rehabs, said that she is happy where she is. She just misses the garden she and her neighbors used to maintain in the back of the house. They used to plant okra and collard greens there but are no longer allowed to, she said as she carried a pot with a young cucumber vine to her front yard.

The Neighborhood

Attendees of Tuesday’s management team meeting asked Anderson for details on whether and how current residents would get to move back in.

“There will be no permanent displacement. We are trying to keep the time residents are out of their homes as minimal as possible,” Anderson responded.

Ninety-six families currently live in the apartments that will be renovated.

The nonprofit plans to work extensively with residents to figure out how to move them out of and into their homes with as little disruption as possible, Anderson said. This will likely mean a combination of booking extended-stay hotel rooms and renting other apartments in the neighborhood.

Anderson said that the nonprofit hopes to keep each family’s stay elsewhere down to less than a month.

“The park is still on the table?” asked Management Team Chair Florita Gillespie.

Anderson replied that the nonprofit is going to build the promised park on Garden Street. The nonprofit will also help the city design upgrades to the Day Street Park behind Amistad Middle School, based on community feedback. The new park design will likely include a splash pad, a feature of the Kensington Park that the neighborhood is losing.

Including these promises plus the rehabilitations and the new building, the total cost of the project is around $30 million. Just over half of the dollars will come through the LIHTC process. According to Anderson, The Community Builders is chipping in another fifth and the remaining dollars will come from a combination of historic tax credits and other sources.

The Community Builders plans to hire a general contractor in August. Anderson said that the nonprofit will be relying on help from the Dwight management team to find women- and minority-owned businesses to include in the construction team.

Construction is scheduled to start in the winter and end in the spring of 2022, Anderson said.