nothin Brick Buffed; No Vampires Spotted | New Haven Independent

Brick Buffed; No Vampires Spotted

Paul Bass Photos

Eliudh Rodriguez repoints bricks at 224-6 Edgewood (below).

Millions of dollars are pouring into reviving old buildings along Dwight’s stretch of Edgewood Avenue — with guarantees that low-income families will remain there for decades.

On these blocks, it seems that the urban gentrification vampire” script, in which the money required to improve housing stock leads to higher rents and wealthier tenants or homeowners pushing out poorer renters, is not being followed.

The bulk of the work, which began in the spring and is hitting high gear this month, is being undertaken by the neighborhood’s dominant landlord, Community Builders. The Boston-based builder owns the Kensington Square housing development, a series of unconnected buildings scattered through Dwight on and around Edgewood Avenue between Beers and Dwight streets. It has launched an $8 million renovation effort on all 21 buildings it has in the area with 120 apartments.

Some of the work is patch-up, like the painting taking place at the corner of Edgewoood and Kensington (pictured). Apartments in other buildings have been getting new bathrooms, hallways, bedrooms, and roofs.

The most ambitious and visible work is taking place at 224 – 6 Edgewood. Community Builders has enlisted Haynes Construction to gut and rehab two units and turn them into handicapped-accessible apartments, do extensive work in the other eight units, and repoint and powerwash all the exterior brick of a circa 1908 building that responded to the city’s demand for denser housing during New Haven’s immigration boom for the turn of the century,” according to local historian Colin Caplan.

The brickwork’s joints are severely deteriorated; masons are grinding out the joints and repointing the brick all over the edifice.

The building sits between two of the area’s anchors: a building that houses the Greater Dwight Development Corporation and Montessori School, and a lot that neighbors turned into a community mini-park.

Magana knocks out glass to make way for a new brick covering.

The work at 224 – 6 Edgewood has enhanced the block’s feel. The subcontractor overseeing the masonry work, a Mexican immigrant named Elias Magana, is also touching up the brick exterior of Kensington Square’s corner apartment house up the street at 135 Edgewood.

Dwight Gardens, Phase 1.

Next door to that building is Dwight Gardens, the former Dwight Co-op townhouses. The city enlisted a different builder, Navarino Capital, to rebuild the 80 townhouses there. The crew is finishing up the gut-rehab renovation of the first 48 units.

It costs money to upgrade housing, and that cost is often passed on in the form of higher rents or sales prices. This changes the character of the neighborhood, flooding an area with what one vocal participant in New Haven Independent comments-section housing debates refers to as gentrification vampires.”

Novella, a 12-year Kensington Square tenant (she asked not to have her last name published), in her newly renovated kitchen. Below: her new bathroom.

The terms of the major deals in Dwight are aimed to prevent that influx. The Connecticut Department of Housing provided $2.85 million in loans for the project; the city committed $500,000 in loans. The Connecticut Housing Finance Authority (CHFA) provided a $3.8 million loan as well as low-income housing tax credits. Zan Bross, Community Builders’ director of design and construction, said the terms of the state money require keeping all the apartments in the federal Section 8 site-based subsidy programs for 30 years.

It’s been a long time coming,” Serena Neal-Sanjurjo, chief of New Haven government’s neighborhoods anti-blight agency, the Livable City Initiative, said of the commencement of work on the Kensington Square rehab. She said the city’s contribution to the project eventually gets converted from loans to grants.

Under Section 8 program, single renters can earn no more than $37,500 a year and two-person households no more than $45,000, according to Iris Santiago, Kensington Square’s community manager.

Meanwhile, the city decided to require that redevelopers of Dwight Gardens not replace it with a denser market-rate complex. Instead it pursued a rehab of the existing complex for the existing tenants. The complex’s tenants have all been guaranteed the right to occupy the rebuilt units. The tenant mix will be very low-income, low-income and moderate,” according to Navarino principal Justin Goldberg. No room for vampires.

Electrician Mokell Hull relocating low-voltage wires in one of the new handicapped-accessible apartments.

Community Builders has come under criticism over the years for conditions at Kensington Square. This renovation project promises to improve conditions by cutting annual energy use by 24 percent and upgrade lighting, security, plumbing, and the general look of the neighborhood.

That looks spills over to other rehabs in the neighborhood, notably two multi-family houses by Neighborhood Housing Services. Those are the houses at left in the above photo. The upgrades have made the houses owned by low-performing poverty landlords, like the one at right, more noticeable by contrast.

Linda Townsend Maier, who runs the Greater Dwight Development Corporation, said the bigger challenge over the long term lies in Community Builders improving its day-to-day management of Kensington Square. Her group and other neighbors keep their properties clean of trash, but Community Builders doesn’t, Townsend Maier said.

No one’s accountable” to the neighborhood from Community Builders, she said. She also said the company doesn’t screen its tenants well enough, which also has a bigger long-term impact on the neighborhood than the renovation will.

We do screen every applicant 18 and over. We are very strict with HUD guidelines with who’s eligible and who’s not eligible,” Community Builders’ Santiago responded.

Santiago took over as local community manager two months ago. She said as of a month ago she put two staffers in charge of cleaning in the area in addition to contractors used for cleaning the grounds. She urged neighbors to call the Kensington Square office at (203) 777‑6612 with any concerns. That’s why I was brought here,” Santiago said. We’re going to get it done.”

Those issues aside, Townsend Maier said, I’m really happy to see the work they’re doing on the outside of their buildings.”

Haynes Construction, the company overseeing that work, does both new construction and historic rehabs. Rehabs like the current job at 224 – 6 Edgewood are more fulfilling, Assistant Superintendent Mike Barry said at the site Thursday.

Every time you open up a wall, there’s a mystery,” he said. Everything behind a wall is an unforeseen.’”

His crew comes across broken pipes, dead wiring, damaged interior walls. When it’s all fixed, he said, something special results. And history has been preserved.

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