LCI Chief Stepping Down

Serena Neal-Sanjurjo is resigning as chief of New Haven’s neighborhoods anti-blight agency after expanding its mission to promote affordable homeownership and job-creation.

Neal-Sanjurjo will retire from her post as executive director of the Livable City Initiative (LCI) as of Oct. 9.

She informed her employees of the decision in a Tuesday evening email message. In the message, she called the decision ​“one of the most difficult decisions I have had to make in more than 30 years of working in neighborhood community development.”

In a conversation Wednesday with the Independent, Neal-Sanjurjo said it was a life-stage personal decision to step down. She said she hopes to contribute part-time in some form to seeing through some projects she got started, such as the redevelopment of Dixwell Plaza and the former Church Street South as well as a worker-owned laundry in Newhallville. She plans to do that through the quasi-public Economic Development Corporation, which works closely with city government.

“I’m not done yet,” Neal-Sanjurjo said, adding that she looks forward to ​“supporting the city and the administration in its initiatives toward reinvesting our neighborhoods.”

The Elicker administration mid-Wednesday had not yet announced a replacement for Neal-Sanjurjo.

“Serena was an incredible asset to the city. I’m very sad to see her go. She’s been in particular very dedicated to improving options for affordable housing. Many more residents now have access to high-quality affordable housing because of her work,” Mayor Justin Elicker told the Independent.

“LCI is in good hands. We have the best team in city government,” Neal-Sanjurjo said.

Neighborhoods Booster

Former Mayor John DeStefano created LCI in the 1990s to send neighborhood-based government workers throughout the city to respond to building code and nuisance complaints and to help neighbors reclaim abandoned spaces to create community gardens, additions to their homes, or new buildings.

Neal-Sanjurjo, a Hillhouse High School grad who grew up in the Dixwell neighborhood’s Florence Virtue Homes, held community-development posts in New Orleans and Baltimore (where she appeared as a walk-on for two scenes of The Wire). She came home to run LCI in 2014. In addition to overseeing its building code enforcement and property acquisition functions, she had the agency create affordable housing of its own, helping working New Haveners purchase multi-families to live in and rent out some of the units (such as this project on Judith Terrace). LCI also revisited unfinished past deals to spur developers to build more affordable housing. She has paid particular attention to Newhallville, where LCI is building nine new affordable two-family homes on a long-vacant stretch by Thompson Street and Winchester Avenue.

She also worked on broader job-creation projects currently in planning stages, such as the worker-owned laundry for Newhallville and a commercial revival plan for Dixwell Avenue.

One of Neal-Sanjurjo’s LCI deputies, Rafael Ramos, called Neal-Sanjurjo among the most effective department heads he has seen in his over 20 years in city government.

“She’s tough. And she got it done,” Ramos said Wednesday.

LCI instituted a grassroots democracy-budgeting effort under Neal-Sanjurjo. Called the Neighborhood Public Improvement Program, it gave community management teams $10,000 to spend however they wish to improve their communities.

Neal-Sanjurjo also worked on the deal last year that requires a new owner to keep half of the Ninth Square’s housing affordable.

In her email message to her department, Neal-Sanjurjo said the decision to resign was so hard ​“not because of the job but because of you! It is rare in this business that one can get the opportunity to work with people that you consider more than just co-workers but family.

“Together we have reinvented LCI. … The Executive Team of LCI have taken my crazy ideas and brought them to life … However, we’re not done yet. There’s still so much more we can do together, we have tenacity, now how and the foundation for the work we’ve built at LCI to keep us focused.”

In her part-time work at the Economic Development Corporation, Neal-Sanjurjo’s responsibilities will include ​“planning, guiding, and executing redevelopment projects currently underway, and identifying other possible redevelopment projects and partners for continued inclusive growth throughout New Haven,” EDC Executive Director Virginia Kozlowski is quoted as a saying in a city government press release issued Wednesday afternoon.

Click on the above podcast to hear a 2015 radio interview with Neal-Sanjurjo about her New Haven childhood and her subsequent career.