Habitat Houses Get LCI Board OK

Two city land sales got the green light from the Livable City Initiative (LCI) board, while a third one remains on hold.

That happened at a special meeting of the city neighborhood agency’s board at City Hall Thursday where members considered two agreements that would add single-family homes to vacant city-owned lots in the Hill section of the city. Another agreement would transform a two-family house in the same neighborhood into affordable rental housing.

Habitat for Humanity New Haven is looking to build three single-family homes. One of those homes would be on a vacant lot at 39 Elliott St. The other would be on what is now considered two vacant lots at 62 – 66 Sylvan Ave. At Thursday’s meeting, board members gave the OK to LCI to enter into an agreement that would start the process of getting that done.

The next stop is the Board of Alders for approval of both agreements. And also a trip to the Board of Zoning Appeals (BZA) for one of the two.

Evan Trachten, LCI’s city acquisition and disposition coordinator, said in the case of 62 – 66 Sylvan Ave., the vacant lot is two pieces of property. LCI proposes to sell the lots to the organization for $1,000 a piece, or a total of $3,000. The lot on Sylvan Avenue is actually two non-conforming lots. The appraised value of the three city-owned lots is $45,000 for 39 Elliott, $43,600 for 62 Sylvan Ave., and $46,000 for 66 Sylvan Ave.

When the Sylvan Avenue lots are sold together, under common ownership, they will become one lot, Trachten said. But the homebuilding organization would like them to stay two lots so that it can build two single-family homes.

Trachten said that means Habitat will be at the next BZA meeting to ask for permission from that body to keep the lots separate. The $1,000 pricetag is a standard price for nonprofits that have been approved by the Board of Alders, Trachten said.

“I’m proposing that we sell this site to build two houses subject to the zoning board approving them unmerging,” he said of the Sylvan site. The Sylvan Avenue lot is considered a non-conforming lot, which means its technically slightly undersized for building a house because it is about 10 feet shy of the 50 feet of frontage that zoning requires. But Trachten said the BZA has the power to make allowances.

In the case of both sites, the land disposition agreement (LDA) would require that the house built on the site be owner-occupied for a minimum of five years unless a more extensive period is required.

“Habitat has a great track record,” Trachten said. ​“As far as I know, they’ve built every single house they’ve purchased from the city.”

He said Habitat already has several homes that are almost ready to be occupied by their owners and have already asked if the city has more vacant lots. He called the proposed deal a win for the city because it increases the number of owner-occupied homes in the city and puts formerly vacant lots back on the tax rolls.

“We’re just delighted that people continue to want to be homeowners in our neighborhoods and Habitat is doing a great job building,” he said. ​“I hope we can have many more of these in the future. Both from Habitat and for-profit developers continue to rebuild and get owner-occupants. Habitat has a 100 percent completion rate.”

Yellow Light For Elliott St.

While properties for Habitat sailed through the board meeting, a plan for a property at 59 Elliott that would bring a small amount of affordable housing to the city continued to run into roadblocks.

Board members raised concerns back in August about the $10,000 offering price that proposed buyer, Gemma Joseph Lumpkin, for a blighted two-family home at 59 Elliott St.

Lumpkin would like to purchase and renovate the property to rent. Her proposal to do so has been before the board at least since July. The 2016 appraised value of the two-story house is $108,000. Board members previously tabled their vote on the proposal because of concerns that they were possibly selling the house for too little.

A subsequent field trip to tour the house didn’t assuage their concerns with whether Lumpkin might have the experience or the money to undertake such a project. The concerns were less about Lumpkin specifically and more about previous decisions by the city to sell property that never got developed.

Board member Seth Poole said that there’s no doubt that the house needs a ​“full gut [rehab] from the bottom to the top.”

However, similar properties have sold for about $15,000 more to developers with proven track records who got them rehabbed and back on the tax rolls in a timely manner.

“It’s a rough property,” Poole said. ​“I’m in agreement that it has to be bought. But at the same time, I also lift up the fact that a few weeks ago we supported the sale of a similarly sized, equally downtrodden home blocks away for $25,000 to a proven developer who has purchased several properties along Davenport, and his proof is in the pudding.”

Poole said people have started to move into those properties and the upgrades in his estimation are ​“second to none.”

“That person paid $25,000 for a home that doesn’t have a driveway,” he added. ​“This property has a driveway with the potential for a garage. And a good amount of backyard and the square footage is comparable as well.”

Board Chair Tim Yolen sought more details about Lumpkin’s funding source since she would be purchasing the home and developing it privately.

“When we turn to Habitat for Humanity we know the work gets done, it’s budgeted,” Yolen said. ​“Do we have any ability to see this applicant’s finances?”

LCI Director Serena Neal-Sanjurjo said that Lumpkin had provided a cost estimate for the project of about $60,000. Yolen asked what assurance LCI had that she has the money.

“The problem is we don’t do anyone a favor if we sell this to someone who does not have adequate funding,” he said. ​“It could sit around for three years then what have we done?

Neal-Sanjurjo said that as part of LCI’s due diligence it looks at all those numbers to ensure that projects will be completed.

It wasn’t enough for Yolen, who made the motion to send the application back until more financial details could be provided to the board.

Neal-Sanjurjo said LCI has no problem asking the applicant for her financial details. But she did note that what makes the property different from the one Poole referenced on Davenport is that the applicant wants to provide affordable housing. And any agreement struck between LCI and Lumpkin would restrict the property to affordable rental as part of the conditions for selling her the property.

“The goal here is to provide affordable housing,” said Neal-Sanjurjo, who currently sits on the city’s Affordable Housing Task Force. ​“As we seek to create an opportunity for affordable housing, we need to do it in however a creative way that we can figure out.”

She said that, like Yolen, LCI has no interest in sitting on properties any more particularly when it could be developed.

“That’s been a charge for the last three years,” she said. ​“So we’re moving them, and we have a list of properties that we’re going to get out on the street. No sense in our sitting on them. We’ve been doing it for 15 to 20 years; it’s time for them to go.”

Yolen said the city is famous for sitting on properties particularly under nonperforming land disposition agreements, or LDAs.

“It’s time to stop it,” he said.

Neal-Sanjurjo agreed.

“We are moving clearly toward moving some of those old LDAs,” she said. ​“There is no reason for us to sit on them, and the ones that you have seen before you, we are in negotiations to get them done.

“We will not let them sit for 25 years ever again.”

In a conversation after the meeting, Lumpkin said she got the idea for the rehab project after looking around her neighborhood and seeing how many decrepit houses are owned by major local landlords. She successfully rehabbed the older home in which she lives; she decided she should take action to use that experience to help improve other properties rather than see them run down. She called it a ​“social entrepreneurial” mission, ​“trying to do some good.” She said she is in the process of preparing a financing plan for the LCI board.