Strong School, Housing Deals Win Final OKs

Alders paved the way for 212 more affordable apartments to materialize in four different neighborhoods — including at the former Strong School on Grand Avenue — along with two education initiatives for hundreds of kids and adults.

Those housing-and-education-enabling votes took place Monday night during the latest full Board of Alders meeting, which was held in the Aldermanic Chamber on the second floor of City Hall.

Alders gave final approvals to five pieces of legislation for financing and eliminating roadblocks to four separate housing and education plans — including approving a funding source for the revival of the formal state social services building on Bassett Street, which is set to house the city’s adult education programs alongside a community center.

Among the affordable housing developments that came a step closer to fruition on Monday was a plan to transform the former Strong School building at 69 Grand Ave. into an LGBTQIA+ friendly affordable housing complex.

Alders approved the city’s sale of three lots including or adjacent to the abandoned school building for $500,000 to Pennrose, a national affordable housing developer planning to rehabilitate and build upon the historic structure.

They also passed a zoning map amendment reclassifying 19 Clinton Ave. and an unnumbered address on Perkins Street — the two lots adjacent to the original Strong School building that were included in the sale — from a residential RM‑1 zone to a mixed-use BA‑1 zone. That zoning legislation ensured that all three parcels, which will eventually form one cohesive development, now fall under the same zoning regulations.

Pennrose has agreed to build about 58 new apartments, 50 of which will be affordable for tenants making between 30 and 80 percent of the Area Median Income (AMI) for 30 years. (That range of affordability would allow, for example, for four-person households making between $33,525 and $89,400 per year.)

Pennrose has proposed building a combination of studios, one-bedroom, and two-bedroom apartments. 

The building will include an indoor space where local artists can display their work and community groups can gather.

It will meet Enterprise Green Communities’ sustainability metrics. 

And it will be explicitly welcoming to LGBTQIA+ tenants, though tenants will not be selected based on their identities. 

In a previous public hearing, Pennrose developer Karmen Cheung suggested participating in Pride Month events and including gender neutral bathrooms as examples of how the apartment building will support LGBTQIA+ community members.

Fair Haven Alder Sarah Miller, whose ward includes the Strong School site, spoke in support of the project on Monday. After a decade of community brainstorming and a series of failed attempts to revive the project, she said, Pennrose’s proposal falls in line with neighbors’ vision for the historic building. ​“There will be not just affordable housing but also live-work spaces for artists and a public space on Grand Avenue that will be available to the community,” she said.

Pennrose embarked on ​“a robust community engagement effort,” which generated support from neighbors who testified in favor of the project at city meetings, said Legislation Committee Chair and Wooster Square/Mill River Alder Ellen Cupo.

The sole alder to vote in opposition to the sale of the property on Monday was Fair Haven Heights’ Rosa Ferraro-Santana, who said she supports the Pennrose development — ​“I think it’s a great project” — but objected to the city’s last-minute submission of amendments to the sale agreement.

The city submitted to the alders 39 technical amendments to the agreement a few days before the final vote. Those amendments primarily adjusted typos and tweaked process-related requirements. For example, the city added a requirement that the developer participate in ​“at least two consecutive” bond funding application rounds.

Santana argued, ​“I think the city needs to do a better job of making amendments and bringing it to us” in a timely way.

$5M OK'd For Hill, Dixwell, Downtown Developments

Also on Monday night, alders an Elicker administration proposal to allocate another $5 million of federal pandemic-relief American Rescue Plan Act funding for the city’s ​“I’m Home Initiative Rental Development Program.”

That program, administered by the Livable City Initiative (LCI), will funnel the $5 million toward three forthcoming affordable housing projects in the Hill, Dixwell, and Downtown that purportedly needed to fill financing gaps.

The affected projects would produce a combined 162 affordable housing units, spread between:

• 176 apartments at a site bounded by Henry Street, Canal Street, and Ashmun Street, including 58 apartments rented below market rate. The Board of Alders voted in late 2020 to sell the property to local developer Yves Joseph for $500,000 and to fix the affordable units’ taxes at $400 per apartment for the first five years of a 15-year deal, with a 3 percent annual increase for the following 10 years. 

• 58 apartments at a vacant lot at 16 Miller St., including 44 income-restricted apartments. The Board of Alders voted earlier this year on a revised 17-year tax-abatement deal that set the annual tax burden for those 44 affordable apartments at $450 per unit per year, with a 3 percent annual increase.

• 76 apartments at the corner of State and Chapel, including 60 income-restricted apartments. That project, developed by Beacon Communities, falso received a 17-year tax break deal from the alders that sets the 60 affordable apartments’ tax burdens at $400 per apartment per year, with a 3 percent annual increase.

Several alders testified in support of this funding on Monday.

“This subsidy is important given the increasing costs associated with these projects,” said Finance Committee Chair and Westville Alder Adam Marchand.

Dixwell Alder Jeanette Morrison, whose ward includes the Henry Street development, praised the influx of ​“60 affordable units of good housing” into her neighborhood. 

Downtown/East Rock Alder Eli Sabin supported the State and Chapel development which is slated for a lot across the street from his ward. ​“Beacon Communities provides a lot of housing in my district,” he said. ​“I think it will just be a tremendous help to the community to have these affordable housing units near jobs, near transportation.”

East Rock Alder Anna Festa criticized the city for submitting answers to questions about the ARPA allocation raised at a May 24 Finance Committee meeting on Friday, one business day ahead of the Monday meeting. ​“Not all the questions were answered,” she said, echoing a longtime critique of hers about the logic and consistency behind tax breaks granted to developers: ​“the policy does need to be discussed regarding some of these deals that are being made.”

Still, Festa voted in favor of the allocation. ​“I am supporting these items because they reflect the true need of what we need in New Haven for affordable housing 65 percent or below AMI… It’s supporting true affordability,” she said. ​“I wish there were a way to guarantee that housing for New Haven residents.”

Education Initiatives Advanced for Adults and Kids

Shifting from housing to schooling, Monday’s meeting brought the city a step closer to realizing two education initiatives.

First, alders approved a bid from the city to accept $20 million from the state’s American Rescue Plan Act Capital Project Fund, funding secured by State Rep. Toni Walker to revive the abandoned former social services building at 188 – 206 Bassett St.

The city plans to transform the site into a hub for New Haven Public Schools’ (NHPS) adult education programming, as well as a public community space.

The Board of Education had narrowly passed a plan to move Adult Ed to Bassett Street last August, following a heated debate over whether the education center should be relocated instead to 130 Orchard St. 

At the time, Adult Ed Principal Michelle Bonora and NHPS Supt. Iline Tracey supported an Orchard Street move instead. Neighborhood advocates and alders, meanwhile, argued that Newhallville residents would benefit from closer access to the program.

Community Development Committee Chair and Dwight Alder Frank Douglass explained on Monday that the state funding would go toward ​“construction and improvements to the Bassett Street vacant structure and parking lot.”

After the meeting, Newhallville Alder Devin Avshalom-Smith, whose ward includes the abandoned building, praised the proposal. ​“What’s very important for me is that the mutli-use community center is written in stone.” That provision ​“was a requirement for me” to support the plan.

Additionally, alders approved a contract with United Way of Greater New Haven to administer the Elicker administration’s literacy and math tutoring initiative, which is slated to kick off this summer.

Alders had already approved allocating $3 million of American Rescue Plan Act funding toward the tutoring plan. On Monday, they approved a contract designating United Way as the administrator of the program from June 1, 2023 to August 31, 2025. United Way plans to coordinate tutoring services at a minimum of seven non-profit tutoring sites, with literacy training provided by New Haven Reads. (Read more about the effort here.)

Morrison spoke in support of the plan. ​“This is collaborative. This brings together a variety of programs that are already in place and are teaching children,” she said, adding that ​“our average Joe or Jane has the opportunity to tutor children” through United Way’s efforts.

Both the Bassett Street building revival and the tutoring program received unanimous support from alders.