New Haven Independent

posted by: Jonathan Hopkins on March 10, 2010  12:44pm

I see these co-ops and other similar government experiments in low-income housing as being flawed in two ways. First, they are fixed in time and established as if in a vacuum. However, New Haven’s traditional neighborhoods were mostly built as highly functional and adaptable communities. Second, the government backed co ops are essentially a replacement for the absence of a defining middle class, and a pretty bad replacement at that.
As an example, the court street row houses in Wooster Square were built as modest family homes in the 19th century. By the peak of industrial urbanism in the early 20th century, the row homes had been bought up by developers and subdivided into boarding rooms and tenements for immigrant factory workers. As one of the few positives that came out of urban renewal, the row houses were refurbished and returned to their original purpose in the 1960s. Today, they are some of the most sought after and expensive housing in the city. This type of adaptation based on demand-modest family homes to tenements, back to modest family homes and finally to expensive housing-is lost in many of our housing units built since the mid 20th century.
There is an opportunity to rediscover the traditional neighborhood housing structure that defines New Haven’s past, and New Haven’s thriving neighborhoods. Successful implementation of this would be to build modest and large houses with nice materials, massing and generally high architectural quality and not as a way to gentrify by attracting the elite, but as a way of attracting the middle class to housing they normally can’t afford. They way its made affordable is by allowing the first floor to be rentable as affordable housing, thereby reducing the principle mortgage.
http://photos-h.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc3/hs031.snc3/11855_1194862906822_1085910074_30489393_2999103_n.jpg
This is a highly adaptable building form. It can ideally hold a middle or upper class family in the top two floors, and provide affordable housing for a working couple, new parents or even young family. Its perfect as an apartment, or a starter home. And if demand should ever change (which it inevitably does), the house can become a mansion, or be subdivided to comfortably fit 4 apartments. The ground floor can even be turned into retail space with minor adjustments. No one is smart enough-not politicians, not architects, no one-to effectively address social problems for the rest of time. Problems change, grow and worsen and we need a built environment that changes too, not static housing projects. Probably the only things that should be maintained are public buildings because they should be built to the highest standard and represent permanence and security as well as the collective spirit of the citizenry.

Hopefully the co op is acquired by the residents and they are able to make it a changeable, adaptive place.

posted by: pat on March 10, 2010  5:36pm

In an ideal world, no one would bid on this coop but the shareholders of the coop. People like the Ewings deserve to keep their homes.
    Sometimes when farms have gone to foreclosure, neighbors have refused to bid against their friends.
    Poor management occurs in condominiums too. Share forms of ownership have their own sets of problems.
    Whatever the problems that led up to this sad situation, as a resident of the neighborhood, I’m ready to help my neighbors. Let me know what we can do.

posted by: fFred Johnson on March 10, 2010  6:50pm

As an architect who has recently toured the site, community building and both occupied and vacant units I can say that HUD’s five million dollar estimate for the work that needs to be done is much worst than low;  it seems less than half of what the real estimate should be.  Even if things had progressed normally the limited income potential of the residents would not have been enough to to keep ahead of the rising maintenance costs without steep increases in fees, thereby pricing out the very residents the complex was designed for.  This, like many of New Haven’s past Model Cities ideas, was flawed from the beginning and there is no easy solution to the current situation without some serious money and perhaps a second look at the whole “affordable vs market” housing equations.

posted by: Frank Demarest on March 12, 2010  11:31am

Interesting article

Here are some comments (I don’t know if they will come through with the article:
Comments
posted by: Jonathan Hopkins on March 10, 2010 12:44pm
I see these co-ops and other similar government experiments in low-income housing as being flawed in two ways. First, they are fixed in time and established as if in a vacuum. However, New Haven’s traditional neighborhoods were mostly built as highly functional and adaptable communities. Second, the government backed co ops are essentially a replacement for the absence of a defining middle class, and a pretty bad replacement at that.
As an example, the court street row houses in Wooster Square were built as modest family homes in the 19th century. By the peak of industrial urbanism in the early 20th century, the row homes had been bought up by developers and subdivided into boarding rooms and tenements for immigrant factory workers. As one of the few positives that came out of urban renewal, the row houses were refurbished and returned to their original purpose in the 1960s. Today, they are some of the most sought after and expensive housing in the city. This type of adaptation based on demand-modest family homes to tenements, back to modest family homes and finally to expensive housing-is lost in many of our housing units built since the mid 20th century.
There is an opportunity to rediscover the traditional neighborhood housing structure that defines New Haven’s past, and New Haven’s thriving neighborhoods. Successful implementation of this would be to build modest and large houses with nice materials, massing and generally high architectural quality and not as a way to gentrify by attracting the elite, but as a way of attracting the middle class to housing they normally can’t afford. They way its made affordable is by allowing the first floor to be rentable as affordable housing, thereby reducing the principle mortgage.
http://photos-h.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc3/hs031.snc3/11855_1194862906822_1085910074_30489393_2999103_n.jpg
This is a highly adaptable building form. It can ideally hold a middle or upper class family in the top two floors, and provide affordable housing for a working couple, new parents or even young family. Its perfect as an apartment, or a starter home. And if demand should ever change (which it inevitably does), the house can become a mansion, or be subdivided to comfortably fit 4 apartments. The ground floor can even be turned into retail space with minor adjustments. No one is smart enough-not politicians, not architects, no one-to effectively address social problems for the rest of time. Problems change, grow and worsen and we need a built environment that changes too, not static housing projects. Probably the only things that should be maintained are public buildings because they should be built to the highest standard and represent permanence and security as well as the collective spirit of the citizenry.

Hopefully the co op is acquired by the residents and they are able to make it a changeable, adaptive place.
posted by: pat on March 10, 2010 5:36pm
In an ideal world, no one would bid on this coop but the shareholders of the coop. People like the Ewings deserve to keep their homes.
  Sometimes when farms have gone to foreclosure, neighbors have refused to bid against their friends.
  Poor management occurs in condominiums too. Share forms of ownership have their own sets of problems.
  Whatever the problems that led up to this sad situation, as a resident of the neighborhood, I’m ready to help my neighbors. Let me know what we can do.
posted by: fFred Johnson on March 10, 2010 6:50pm
As an architect who has recently toured the site, community building and both occupied and vacant units I can say that HUD’s five million dollar estimate for the work that needs to be done is much worst than low;  it seems less than half of what the real estimate should be.  Even if things had progressed normally the limited income potential of the residents would not have been enough to to keep ahead of the rising maintenance costs without steep increases in fees, thereby pricing out the very residents the complex was designed for.  This, like many of New Haven’s past Model Cities ideas, was flawed from the beginning and there is no easy solution to the current situation without some serious money and perhaps a second look at the whole “affordable vs market” housing equations.