nothin Newhallville Up For “Historic” Boost | New Haven Independent

Newhallville Up For Historic” Boost

Thomas MacMillan Photos

15 Lilac St. and “historic” 678 Winchester Ave.

Two houses stand near the corner of Winchester and Lilac. Both are part of the same housing stock: built in 1920 and architecturally similar. But only one is historic” and therefore enjoyed a top-to-bottom renovation two years ago, while the other sits boarded up.

Jim Paley wants to change that, to make more Newhallville houses historic” so that his not-for-profit organization can continue to breathe new life into the neighborhood with renovated homes for low-income buyers.

Paul Bass Photo

Delphine Clyburn visits Miriam Oliver during a door-to-door canvas about the historic district proposal.

Paley, the head of Neighborhood Housing Services (NHS), is looking to expand the boundaries of the official Winchester Repeating Arms historic district, which now extends north from the bottom of Winchester Avenue, and ends just a few blocks from the Hamden town line, just short of Lilac Street. His group made an official request to do that with the State Historic Preservation Board.

NHS is able to secure tax credits to support its work on homes within the historic district (and thus do good work while keeping sales prices affordable), but can’t access those tax credits for houses outside it. NHS has submitted an application to extend the district all the way to the Hamden border, so that his agency can take advantage of about $700,000 in tax credits to renovate 14 homes in the area, including three on Lilac.

The Historic Preservation Board is scheduled to vote on Paley’s request this coming Monday. Newhallville Alderwomen Delphine Clyburn and Alfreda Edwards organized neighborhood meetings on Wednesday and Thursday evenings to discuss the proposal.

The proposal would allow NHS to continue its targeted cluster” approach to neighborhood development, which the organization has been working on for several years. The goal is to fix up a large number of houses in a single area, lifting the value of the entire neighborhood all at once.

While other neighborhoods have recovered somewhat from the housing crisis, Newhallville continues to lag behind, peppered with blighted homes. The area struggles with crime and violence, including the mugging of an 83-year-old Yale professor last month. The professor was working on building a Yale-designed home, in partnership with NHS. The attack prompted neighborhood soul-searching and a pledge of new support from the city and Yale, after the university decided not to move forward with the planned house.

Paley (pictured) said extending the historic area further north has no downside. It would allow his agency to win tax credits for its work, without placing any new requirements on homeowners. Property owners are only required to abide by historic preservation guidelines if they get federal dollars or state tax credits to work on their homes.

Paley said NHS staff and local historian Colin Caplan have been working on the district expansion application for about a year.

The Winchester Repeating Arms factory employed 26,000 people at its height during the Korean War, Paley said. The factory drove the development of Newhallville, and many of the houses there were built for workers.

In 1988, the Winchester Repeating Arms National Historic District was created. It ensured that people renovating homes with federal dollars have to adhere to historic preservation requirements laid out by the secretary of the interior. It also allows people to cash in on state historic housing tax credits, Paley said.

But the district ends rather arbitrarily at 678 Winchester. NHS renovated a house at that address two years ago. Paley would like to do the same with an NHS house around the corner at 15 Lilac St. That house, however is just outside of the historic district, which makes financing the project more difficult.

Paley said NHS can get $30,000 per unit for renovating homes in the historic district. NHS has 14 one- and two-family houses — comprising 23 units — in the area Paley hopes will become part of the historic district. The change might allow NHS to access $690,000 in tax credits.

Paley pulled out his Bible,” a spreadsheet showing all the properties that NHS is working on rehabbing, cross-referenced with all the tax credits and federal and state grant money available for them. The $30,000 tax credits are a vital part of the package, he said.

Paley said NHS has a track record” of establishing historical districts, having helped create two others in town.

The state requires a public meeting as part of the historic district application. Paley said NHS held one on May 6, and met with the local Community Management Team on May 29. Two more meetings were to be held Wednesday and Thursday, at Celentano and Lincol-Bassett schools, respectively.

Newhallville Alderwoman Delphine Clyburn has been canvassing the neighborhood to let people know about the proposed change.

I’ve always been supportive,” she said. We just wanted the neighborhood to know about it.”

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