76 New Apartments OK’d For 9th Square

The article omits where the subsidies will be coming from.

Is the State chipping in? Are there project-based Section 8 vouchers? Is the idea to fill the property with tenants already holding Section 8 vouchers?

Please advise.

[Reporter's note: Thanks very much for the comment! According to Beacon's local tax abatement application for this project, they are seeking both Section 8 Project Based Vouchers and 9 percent Low Income Housing Tax Credits to subsidize rents for many of these apartments.]

Apartments: Good.
City tax abatements: bad.

Presumably they can't REQUIRE tenants not to own cars. So when those apartments are built: if someone who owns a car chooses for whatever reason to rent one of those apartments, they will be casting all over the neighborhood for somewhere to park their car overnight, every night, and whenever they are at home.

This sounds like a whole lot of fun for the tenant (but whether that's enough of a disincentive to keep car owners from ever renting there is another matter) -- and also a major pain in the butt for the neighborhood, which is gaining hundreds upon hundreds of apartments while also continuing to be home to some of the most in-demand pizza restaurants in the nation.

Discuss.

AverageTaxpayer: While the LIHTC program is state administered, it is federally funded, as our Section 8 subsidies. So, no, the state is not chipping in, but Beacon expects the taxpayers of New Haven to do so.

Gretchen: Modern, Sally's and Pepe's are all pretty far away from this project. I would never think of parking near it while patronizing one of those restaurants.

Gretchen See Calvin Trillin "Tepper Isn't Going Out".

Gretchen -- can't tenants rent spaces at some of the garages, either right next door or nearby?

The 'parking situation' will also impact The State House.... how does access to that venue 'fit in'??

I really like how the facade of this new building complements what's existing next to it. It kinda looks like the historic buildings that used to line State St before they were demolished for parking lots. Another parking crater filled!

And Gretchen - there is an underutilized parking garage (the entire top deck is nearly empty every day, around 80-100 spaces) right next to this development. I would assume car-owning residents would just park there with the monthly program as it would be super convenient. When I used to live at Beacon's property, they gave us a discount for the adjacent garage.

How are people going to get to State House?

1644,

The biggest problem with 'apizza access' these days is the rise in 'take-out' -- the lines just ain't what they used to be!!!!

So are they basically just killing The State House, or what? This new building pretty much walls it off. Do they even know it's there?

With all these new multi unit residential builds with extremely limited parking there needs to be a full service major chain grocery store on the street level. If you don't own a car, getting to a major grocery store from Downtown, Wooster Square, State St, or Ninth Square and back to your apartment with groceries for the week is a Herculean task, and if you do have a car but have to park it blocks away on the street or in a garage, then you have haul your groceries quite a ways. If you're under 50, and not disabled, you can walk several blocks to get to parking and restaurants, but older people will not want to or may not be able to walk so far. If you are disabled and/or older, you need handicapped parking or parking closer to where you live. With Baby Boomers getting older this is a large group of potential tenants. If you're a millennial or Gen X person raising a family, you don't want to be juggling babies or toddlers and strollers, groceries, packages, a dog on a leash, multiple blocks from where you park your car to your apartment. Our public transportation routes and schedules are not yet sufficient for you to give up your vehicles altogether. Our bike lanes don't yet safely cover all the routes that people would need to get to if they don't have a car. While in the future transportation infrastructure and schedules and routes may be able to mostly replace personal vehicles, currently we still have a need for personal vehicles to get to where we need to go, at the times we need to get from here to there, and to do our grocery and other shopping. Right now the increase in apartments without an equal number of parking spots will make it difficult for entire population demographics to consider living in these units without sufficient parking spots close by. Parking on the street will be an issue during snow, and make it extremely difficult for residents, businesses, retail, restaurants, bars, and other customers, government/municipal visitors to find parking.

Gretchen, the discussion you suggest might be organized around the theme of Donald's Shoup's classic book The High Cost of Free Parking. It's a good read and you can find many of it's main points well discussed online.

@heather

Isn't Elm City Market like, two blocks away?

Curious how will we access State House? :/

Cunningham: Elm City Market isn't exactly full service, but it certainly does for the mid-week quart of milk.
Heather: one needn't own a car for weekly or bi-weekly major grocery shopping. There are delivery services like Pea-Pod, taxis, Uber, Zip Car, and Hertz and Avis within walking distance. Enterprise will pick you up! All these options are more cost effective than the massive capital and maintenance costs of full-time car ownership. For young families, urban living doesn't make sense. There are lots of homes with yards and driveways within commuting distance of downtown New Haven. This type of place is attractive to young people who want to be near bars and nightclubs (like the State House and Cafe Nine), and empty nesters. and childless folks who want to be near restaurants, churches, theater, the Institute Library, etc. Heck, a city-dwelling friend of mine barely knew her apartment had a kitchen until CoViD-19 closed all the restaurants and she had to learn to shop and to cook!

Heather C

I am not Hercules but my small children and I, like many New Haveners, make do without a parking spot. It's odd to impose your own desires on the regulatory process. I'd prefer housing affordability over parking abundance, the latter being the most reliable sign of a dead city, the former being a necessary ingredient for an interesting one.

I don't want to speak to other parties plans, but an important note about the State House is that Beacon does also own that building now too. (They own the entire corner.)

Gretchen, part of the issue is the city's enforcement of its parking laws. This is true for developments with and without on-site parking. The Audubon, a major development a block or so from my house, charges tenants $130/month for parking. If parking enforcement in the neighborhoods is lax, as it currently is, some tenants will decide it is cheaper to park on the street and risk the occasional ticket.

Part of this is a staffing issue. One of two things is true. Either the parking enforcement agents bring in more revenue than they cost, in which case the city should hire more of them. Or they don't, in which case the city should raise the fines.

In any case, if the city continues to expand neighborhood parking zones, it should ensure that it has enough staff to enforce them.

1644, I (and I expect the city) do not have enough information to determine whether abatements are good or bad. It is entirely possible that even with the tax credits and Section 8 vouchers, the project still loses money. In that case, I as a New Haven homeowner am OK with tax abatements to help with the city's affordable housing problem. But I would need to see the financials (something I doubt have been presented to the Board of Alders).

LinlyMarks and LorcanotOrca, there is still ready access to State House (a great venue), as shown in the renderings in the previous article on this development.