New Haven Independent

HANH’s Board of Commissioners Tuesday evening approved contracts with three firms to do lead paint abatement and asbestos removal with money received under the act.
All three are headquartered in Greater New Haven; one is minority owned; and one is the business success story of a HANH resident.

The projects were presented to the HANH board by Gary Hogan, late of Livable City Initiative, who lost that job in the recent round of City Hall layoffs. HANH subsequently hired Hogan as a project manager, five weeks ago.

Hewitt Construction Services, on Huntingdon Avenue in New Haven, was authorized to do asbestos and lead-based paint abatement in a contract not to exceed $100,000. Hewitt is a minority-owned firm.

Advanced Construction Technologies (ACT) was authorized to do similar work in a minimum of 33 HANH-owned units for a contract not to exceed $575,000. ACT is owned by Yul Watley, a former resident of Westville Manor who no lives in one of HANH’s “scattered-site” homes.

“Yul’s had some work from HANH before, “said Pamela Rosenbloom, HANH’s director of planning for capital projects and modernization. “But this is the first large contract.”

As with nearly all HANH contracts, a bidding process is involved, with the selection going to the lowest bidding yet “responsible” vendor. However, under the Section 3 provision of the agency, preference is given in the awarding of contracts to women owned and minority businesses, and also to residents of HANH who have begun their own businesses.

Watley regularly attends HANH meetings, where he frequentlys report on the evolution of his enterprise, began ACT doing smaller home restoration work in HANH units that suffered fire or water damage. He was not in attendance Tuesday when his new contract was approved.

The third firm awarded stimulus-funded work was Hamden-based L.A. Homes, which has done considerable work for the city installing bicycle racks, executing painting contracts, and also construction.

The lion’s share of the $6 million, said Rosenblum, is for “vacancy preparation,” or getting units ready for new occupancy. Not all the work is restricted to environmental clean up, although Tuesday’s contracts all were.

“In some cases,” said Rosenbloom, “for example, we are preparing the waterproofing of the façade of Crawford Manor as a stimulus-funded project. Because of the age of a lot of our buildings, the maintenance required is also an aspect of focus of the recovery act funding.”