Gentrification Eyed For Ex-Artists’ Haven

Great to see that the opportunities and benefits of gentrification are being shared (not just in downtown or East Rock) Converting these properties from dangerous slums to vibrant housing is how New Haven will lift up all of its neighborhoods and move towards its potential.

GENTRIFICATION!!

Using that trigger word to describe this WONDERFUL IDEA seems to cut up the reality that this city needs more middle class citizens and this conversion is an ideal option for them!

I say this again and again,... more housing (regardless of the pricing of the unit) will benefit ALL in this town.

The more units, the more options everyone will have to find a place they like in an area they want to be in.

CONGRATS to the Hill area, you're a hot ticket these days!

At this point, a quarter of the people responding to the survey favor using the building for affordable artist space. I have artist friends and the city's art communities are a real asset. But why should subsidies (which would clearly be needed) go to artists rather than households with lower incomes? In other cities that have promoted subsidized housing for artists, the majority of beneficiaries have been white. FWIW, I'm white myself, but this strikes me as unwise.

Building more affordable housing in New Haven is a great idea, but it won't happen in any significant or meaningful quantity until we allow private developers to invest a lot more money into the city. Investments by private developers will improve the city's underlying infrastructure and capacity to add more mixed-income units. Projects like this one should be fast-tracked.

Once there is a healthier market for market-rate units, much larger amounts of affordable housing will follow. At that point we can give incentives to developers to add more affordable units to their projects. For now, money spent on incentives to create a tiny handful of affordable units is probably a waste -- that money would be better used to maintain parks, expand library hours, provide food to starving and homeless children in our schools, revamp brownfields so that private investors can build there, preserve significant historic buildings that would otherwise be lost forever, improve transportation options, and rebuild the crumbling streets and sidewalks around the homes of existing residents, among other things.

Well, I used to say I lived in New Haven but I guess I should switch to saying I live in Yale. What a bleak future New Haveners have here. Looking forward to the Yale bubble bursting, cannot come soon enough!

Bradley,

Why does race have to be the thing you bring up?

ARTIST HOUSING...why does the color of their skin make them any more or less appropriate for the housing?

Unwise? So will New Haven have a ethnicity obligation when it comes to subsidizing housing now?

White, Black, Latino - if you fit the bill and qualify for the subsidy...and you applied on time and you were randomly selected ....you get it.

Giving weight to a candidate based on their skin is wrong and we have to move away from this argument every time something comes up.

Anytime you provide a neighborhood climate which discourages crime and encourages civility it is a good thing. All of our neighborhoods, poor or otherwise should get rid of the thugs, petty street criminals and drug dealing hoodlums. A clean and lawful environment for our kids to grow up in will benefit everyone. Gentrification does not mean a neighborhood has to lose its identity. There should be room for every economic level of income. We need to take back our city and make it inclusive for anyone who wants to live in it. The only thing not needed are predatory criminals.

ThenewNewHaven, you miss my point. Housing subsidies should be administered on a race- blind basis. But limiting subsidies to a specific occupation, which happens to be largely white, effectively discriminates on the basis of race.

BRANDLEY - "Housing subsidies should be administered on a race- blind basis." AGREED.

BRADLEY - "Limiting subsidies to a specific occupation, which happens to be largely white, effectively discriminates on the basis of race." WHAT? HOW?

This is not government subsidized low-income housing. This is ARTIST HOUSING that provides subsidies to those in the art world so they can actually work as artist instead of working to make rent and doing art in their free time.

Saying we shouldn't do this because a large population of the arts world in white is RACIST. Why can't artists who are white gain subsidies? Why does it matter that the largest population receiving housing elsewhere is white? Should those artists work another job instead because they're white so another artist who is black or Latino can take their place?

As long as the application process was for equal opportunity, I see no issue with the majority being white.

The criteria for artist housing,...does it include having a masters degree in art? Student debt? A clear history of financial need? A successful history of previous examples of their art? A DRUG TEST?

The argument that race shouldn't be a component to housing, in general, is KEY to moving forward. To say there aren't hundreds of black and Latino people right in our city who consider themselves artists and would benefit from this housing is silly, wrong, and racist in its own right.

A lottery system would fix this. post the housing, let those apply... select from those that applied on time and meet the criteria. simple.

"Gentrification" is a relative word here. These small apartments in a struggling neighborhood will rent out to students, nurses, post-docs and lower-paid hospital workers, very much not the "modern gentry." No one making as much as the CT median income is going to live here.

Artists are finding all sorts of underused little corners to occupy, throughout the city. The Westville open studios weekend was revealing in that way. Government subsidies should be reserved for poor families and the otherwise homeless, not artists' studios.

posted by: DMV203 on October 19, 2016 11:54am

Well, I used to say I lived in New Haven but I guess I should switch to saying I live in Yale. What a bleak future New Haveners have here. Looking forward to the Yale bubble bursting, cannot come soon enough!

You and others will not even being living in what you call Yale. Again New haven in in stage one of the Gentrification Vampires taking over. By summer New Haven will be in stage two.Read this report by Hofstra.

The Disputed Neighborhood: Gentrification of "East Williamsburg"
and Identity in the Shared Space.

Artists and skateboarders make up two distinctive, yet not mutually exclusive, subculture groups that perpetuate gentrification through their high cultural capital yet low economic status. Their influence in Bushwick has been noticed through the prevalence of a loft aesthetic as well as amenities catering to this population. Physical spaces are claimed as identity markers and boundary formers, around socio-spatial characterizations. These boundaries are crossed through art, skating and community development in Bushwick between the gentry residents and long-term residents.
There is no doubt, that Bushwick or "East Williamsburg," is undergoing the second stage of gentrification outlined by Jose Gonzalez. The internalization of gentrification as manifesting in the visual topography, community of gentry, ingredients for the neighborhood to gentrify, colonial discourse of conquest and devalorization of the working-class population all point towards the region being gentrified. Key facilitators such as artists and skateboarders, dissociate themselves as important catalysts of the process

http://www.hofstra.edu/academics/colleges/hclas/anthro/hpia/hpia-ortega.html

Part one.

Part Two

Across this country this is happing to artist.

NYC Artists' Lofts Before and After the Loft Law.

As written in the same New York Times article, by 1970, some artists were already worried that "Real estate developers would jump at the chance to replace the [neighborhood's] stubby buildings with profitable high-rise buildings." There was also concern that the city's Planning Commission may simply raze the neighborhood to make way from middle-income housing. These concerns were not unfounded. Buildings that had sold for $30,000 in 1960 were, by early 1970, being sold for $150,000.

https://www.cityrealty.com/nyc/market-insight/features/trending-in-ny/nyc-artists-lofts-before-after-loft-law/4621


Like I said New haven and even West Haven Now is in Stage One.By summer time when stage two hits a lot of you will be gone.

While I'm personally not sad to see a (now) abandoned building be used for apartments, I think the real loss was last year when all the artists living/working here had to leave immediately.

If something illegal was going on with living/working conditions the blame should go to the owner. It's a shame changes weren't made to the building to allow the artists to continue to stay.

Not sad to see more apartments, but I hope New Haven keeps its artists and holds them close. Thankful for Erector Square, Artspace, and ArLoW/West River Arts.

The artists weren't there legally, why should the owner be punished for squatters? They couldn't stay because there were a ton of fire hazards. I'm sure nobody minds until the place burns down and a bunch of people die and then of course why were they there in the first place?!

The important part is that we demonize developers because class warfare must continue.

'Affordable Artist Space' is so last century.......

Sounds great on development plans -- but that never quite happened in New Haven....

"The artists weren't there legally, why should the owner be punished for squatters? They couldn't stay because there were a ton of fire hazards."

BetweenTwoRocks...

The artists were there legally—assuming they were paying rent. I never said the people living there should have been, but it was a building where people rented out studio space. Seems perfectly legal.

The second part, however, you are right about. From the article...

"Inspectors found a lack of proper smoke detectors, blocked fire exits and an inadequate sprinkler system."

That is what should have been fixed, and then the artists could have stayed.

ADAK, some of the people at Daggett Square were there legally. Others weren't, either because they were using their studios as living spaces in violation of their lease or they were friends of tenants living there who were not on the lease.

TNNH, it's fine if building owners want to give a preference for artists, using their own money, so long as they comply with anti-discrimination laws. But if government funding is involved, the funding agency has to be mindful of disparate impact, even if there is no discriminatory intent. The artist housing developments I am aware of have all involved substantial government funding.

Gentrification displacing people from their homes is a myth...3/5's links to papers on this subject which rely on very old, 1980s academic papers that rely upon perception and not fact.

The 20 year long 2002 Vigdor study (factually) put a bullet in the idea that gentrification displaces poor people. The rates of moveing were the same from gentrifying and non-gentrifying neighborhoods.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2015/01/the_gentrification_myth_it_s_rare_and_not_as_bad_for_the_poor_as_people.html

posted by: robn on October 20, 2016 10:27am

Gentrification displacing people from their homes is a myth…3/5's links to papers on this subject which rely on very old, 1980s academic papers that rely upon perception and not fact.

He we go again.Read this.

Gentrification May Be Complicated, But It's Not a Myth and Neither Is Displacement

By Kim Velsey • 01/20/15

In a recent Slate article, John Buntin, a correspondent for Governing magazine, argues that gentrification is a myth, a claim that we've certrainly heard before. And much like his predecessors, Mr. Buntin bases this claim on two premises: that displacement is a fiction and that gentrification, or what we erroneously call gentrification, is not only incredibly rare, but a good thing for poor minorities living in bad neighborhoods. It's a contrary position, and like many contrary positions, it claims to add nuance when in fact it elides it.And perhaps most importantly, Mr. Buntin's argument is simply wrong.

http://observer.com/2015/01/gentrification-may-be-complicated-but-its-not-a-myth-and-neither-is-displacement/


Longtime Tenants in Manhattan See an Effort to Push Them Out

Tenants and tenant advocates say the gates are just one of the tactics that the Orbach Group has deployed in a campaign to harass and drive out low- and middle-income residents, many of them Latino, and replace them with Columbia University students who pay much steeper rents for the newly deregulated units.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/19/nyregion/longtime-tenants-in-manhattan-see-an-effort-to-push-them-out.html

This is going on around this country..

http://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/local/Family-Sues-West-Haven-Over-Eminent-Domain-Case-395288991.html

Stop Eminent Domain Abuse in West Haven!

Stop the West Haven Land Grab

https://developdontdestroywh.wordpress.com/

I keep telling you all.New haven Is in the first Stage.These gentrification vampires are steping up there game a lot of you will be push out.

Yes her we go again. I give data and 3/5 gives opinion pieces.

"University of Washington economist Jacob Vigdor. In 2002, Vigdor examined what had happened in Boston between 1974 and 1997, a period of supposedly intense gentrification and found no evidence that poor people moved out of gentrifying neighborhoods at a higher than normal rate. In fact, rates of departure from gentrifying neighborhoods were actually lower."

"In 2004, Columbia University economists Lance Freeman and Frank Braconi conducted a similar study of gentrification in New York City in the 1990s and found that low-income residents of "gentrifying" neighborhoods were less likely to move out of the neighborhood than low-income residents of neighborhoods that had none of the typical hallmarks of gentrification."

"In 2010, University of Colorado–Boulder economist Terra McKinnish, examined gentrification across the nation as a whole over the course of the 1990s. McKinnish found that gentrification created neighborhoods that were attractive to minority households, particularly households with children or elderly homeowners. They found no evidence of displacement or harm. While most of the income gains in these neighborhoods went to white college graduates under the age of 40 (the archetypical gentrifiers), black high school graduates also saw their incomes rise. They also were more likely to stay put. In short, black households with high school degrees seemed to benefit from gentrification."

Mic drop

posted by: robn on October 20, 2016 12:46pm

Yes her we go again. I give data and 3/5 gives opinion pieces.

Sorry no opinion pieces.Read the Macarthur Foundation report,which show those households you talk about the renters are compensating by taking second jobs or running up debt by paying other expenses on their credit cards.The study did show that 20% of neighborhoods in America's 50 largest cities were experiencing significant gentrification, with housing costs rising and poor residents being driven out. In these gentrified neighborhoods, the overall population has increased, and in particular, the white, non-Hispanic population has increased by an average of 4.3%. The poverty rate in these neighborhoods has declined. In comparison, non-gentrified neighborhoods have experienced lower overall populations, an increase in non-white residents, a decreased white, non-Hispanic population, and an increase in poverty by almost 7%. In stark terms, one in five neighborhoods is getting whiter and richer, while the majority of the studied neighborhoods are getting darker and poorer. For decades Washington, D.C., was known affectionately as "Chocolate City" to many black Americans, because it was predominantly African-American/Look at it now. Read this report.

Pushed Out: The Hidden Costs of Gentrification: Displacement and Homelessness
4/2009

As the forces of gentrification continue to push deeper into Brooklyn and Queens, more and more very-low-income and precariously housed families and children will be displaced from their residences, communities, and schools, and perhaps forced into shelter.

http://www.icphusa.org/PDF/reports/ICP Report_Pushed Out.pdf

Like I said this is happing across this country and New Haven and West haven will see the same thing.Look at what happen to the people of church street south.

Part One.

Part two
"In 2004, Columbia University economists Lance Freeman and Frank Braconi conducted a similar study of gentrification in New York City

The reason why they wrote this is to help Columbia University expansion which help push out poor people.

Columbia is a very important player, but it's also beyond Columbia because those forces are already at play in a wider sense," he says. "The idea is that they need to get the poorer people out, especially out of Manhattan. If you look at all the other neighborhoods, they have seen this already; for example, in the Lower East Side."

http://www.journalism.nyu.edu/publishing/archives/pavement/in/columbia-university-expansion-has-west-harlem-residents-fearful/index.html

In Fact Yale is doing the same thing as Columbia University. Keep on sleeping.Like I said a lot of people here in new haven will not be here for long.

3/5,

Please link to the MacArthur Foundation report you'd like me to read and I'll read it.

3/5,

The ICP "Pushed Out" report is about "precariously housed" and explains that these are people already on the edge of eviction or sleeping on friends couches.

The report also acknowledges that "low income residents are not experiencing massive displacement because of gentrification but a italy benefit from the influx of capital to the area."

This is all in the second paragraph and it reinforces my earlier points.

Hellow did you not understand not enough parking space .I live here for over fifty years.Through the riots burn outs and gangs.They ripped out communities for empty school buildings, put a legal drug facility next to it in a building that once was also a school,we have a package store no more than fifty feet next to the John Daniels our first black mayor.These fake alderpersons supported by the union dont care for anyone except them selves they promote these projects with promises of employment and other benefits damn well knowing its a lie.Yale is using them and they are using us.Our children deserve better , no more apartments for these slum lords no more invading our communities no more fake politician.Do you understand alderpersons Reyes (5th ward)Rodriguez (4th ward)James (3rd ward)and also union backed Colon from church street south its time you work for us