With the help of Habitat volunteers like these ones, a block-long stretch of the Hill is close to being reborn.
Four new houses on a once-abandoned stretch of Rosette Street sparkled Tuesday as volunteers from the Oxford Academy high school in Westbrook (pictured above) set to work heaving dirt and painting the new homes, soon to be filled with families. Later that night, the city zoning board gave Habitat for Humanity the OK to demolish a fifth house on that block, making way for what neighbors see as a “100 percent change” from the drug dens that preceded them.
The Rosette Street project, which Habitat’s been planning for seven years, will transform the side of the street between Dewitt and Arthur Streets into five owner-occupied homes. Five low-income families, who must put in 400 hours of labor on their own homes before buying them through a zero-interest mortgage, have been selected to move in.
Gobs of local volunteers have been hard at work on the homes since September, taught and guided by Habitat’s Gene McDonald (pictured), who incidentally lives nearby in the Hill.
A zoning variance to make way for the fifth house, at 96 Rosette St., easily passed through the Board of Zoning Appeals in a vote Tuesday. “They’re going to be taking care of one of the biggest eyesores in the neighborhood,” testified Hill Alderman Jorge Perez, who helped make the project happen.
The development has been welcomed as a “blessing” by those who live nearby.
The Rev. Glenn Reynolds, who’s lived across the street since 1977, has been watching the area transform each day from his home above the Mennonite Bible Fellowship Church. A well-known neighborhood figure, he worked at Winchester for 40 years, and raised his family in the Hill. He’s a go-to-guy for neighbors seeking advice and pastor at the church (pictured).
The stretch of buildings that are being replaced — a church, a store, then a bunch of houses — were nice 30 years ago, said Reynolds, who popped out of his home to chat with a friend at the Habitat site Tuesday. “Then the kids got so wild.” Homes had busted windows, got boarded up and foreclosed. With the help of Perez, the city turned them over to Habitat.
“It’s just been a hundred percent change to see them houses up, and no busted windows,” said Reynolds, speaking the melodies of his native North Carolina. “It’s been a blessing today to see it come back in here.”
Reynolds said the fix-up has inspired him to follow suit. He wants to extend the brick siding around the side of his church to match the street’s new look.
“We don’t have the money that those people have, but we’ll do it, step by step,” said Reynolds. “God’s gonna bless us.”
The homes are constructed by volunteers with funds from private and non-profit sponsors. They’ll be owned by low-income families making 30 to 60 percent of the AMI (area median income) — for a family of four, that’s no more than $42,000 per year, said Bill Casey, executive director of Habitat’s New Haven chapter.
Casey said the Rosette Street project is Habitat’s main focus right now. Its plans for the property across the street from the Taurus Caf√جø¬Ω remain up in the air, he said, but Habitat has plans to start work elsewhere in Newhallville during the summer.
Casey’s planning an opening ceremony for the Rosette Street project on June 11 at 5:30 p.m.
Meanwhile, as spring trees (like this one, pictured) bloom on Rosette Street, neighbors like John Dye, who runs the area management team, will be watching the block’s transformation day by day.
“We’re very excited about it,” said Dye, who was bringing his recycling to the curb on sunny Tuesday afternoon. “We’re trying to restabilize the neighborhood with homeownership. It will invigorate the neighborhood.”