Alder Steve Winter with Beulah's Darrell Brooks after vote.
BEULAH LAND DEVELOPMENT/ HELP USA
New apartments planned on Dixwell.
A local affordable housing developer’s bid to build 69 new apartments atop “Joe Grate’s lot” on Dixwell Avenue moved forward yet again, after alders unanimously voted to amend a tax-abatement and land-sale agreement with terms more generous to the builder.
Local legislators took that vote Monday night during the latest regular bimonthly meeting of the full Board of Alders. The in-person meeting took place in the Aldermanic Chamber on the second floor of City Hall.
The alders voted unanimously in support of a resolution approving a second amended and restated Development and Land Disposition Agreement (DLDA) between the city and Beulah Land Development Corporation for the development of 316 Dixwell Ave., 340 Dixwell Ave., and 783 Orchard St.
The newly amended agreement includes a 30-year tax break that caps the local property taxes for the project’s planned 55 affordable apartments at $400 per year, with a 3 percent annual increase over the course of the deal.
That new 30-year term is twice as long as the 15-year tax-break agreement that alders first approved for this project in November 2020. (The developer would still pay full local property taxes on the 14 remaining market-rate units to be included in the project.)
The newly amended DLDA also requires the developer to pay the city $200,000 in exchange for taking over the city-owned property at 316 Dixwell Ave. That’s $80,000 less than the $280,000 city-land sale price included in the November 2020 deal.
And the new DLDA authorizes the city to accept a $1 million state Department of Housing (DOH) Urban Act grant to help subsidize the costs of the development’s below-market-rate apartments.
Monday night's Board of Alders meeting.
“This is a strategic investment,” Prospect Hill/Newhallville/Dixwell Alder Steve Winter said in support of the amended DLDA. He said it will lead to the development of a 69-unit housing complex that will “revitalize one of the most prominent intersections on Dixwell Avenue.”
Beulah, in partnership with the New York City-based nonprofit HELP USA, plans to build the 69 new apartments atop a lot at the intersection of Dixwell Avenue, Munson Street, and Orchard Street that used to house a gas station, a parking lot, and Joe Grate’s popular barbecue stand.
Winter also lauded the deep affordability of the 55 below-market-rate apartments to be included in this project.
Per the terms of the Connecticut Housing Finance Authority’s (CHFA) award of $1,582,761 in tax credits for this project, 14 of the development’s apartments will be reserved for households earning no more than 25 percent of the area median income (AMI). Since the federally defined AMI for the New Haven-Meriden region is currently $93,000, that means those 14 apartments will be reserved for households earning up to $23,250 per year.
CHFA’s award also states that four units in this proposed apartment complex will be reserved for households earning no more than 30 percent AMI ($27,900 per year), 28 units for households earning no more than 50 percent AMI ($46,500), and nine units for households earning up to 60 percent AMI ($55,800). The remaining 14 units will be rented out at market rates.
“The greatest need in our is for deeply affordable units,” East Rock Alder Charles Decker said on Monday night in supported of the amended DLDA. That’s what this project will provide. “I feel like these are exactly the sorts of investments that we as a board need to be making for our legislative agenda. It seems like an absolute no brainer for me.”
Dixwell Alder Jeanette Morrison agreed. She said that this area of Dixwell-Munson-Orchard is the part of the city in which she grew up. For too long, Joe Grate’s former lot has just say there “with nothing happening.”
With the affordable housing and construction jobs that will come from from this project, she said, “this is exactly the thing that we need to have in our community.”
Winter and Decker also singled out for praise the environmentally friendly “mass timber” construction method.
Alder Winter.
So. Why the delay in construction, and why the need to update the November 2020 DLDA at all?
Winter said that this proposed 69-unit development has been in the works for four years. After the alders signed off on the DLDA in November 2020, Beulah and HELP secured over $1.5 million in 9 percent low income tax credits from CHFA.
“But with increases in construction costs due to the pandemic, Beulah had to secure financing from Freddie Mac” as well. Winter said that Freddie Mac, or the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, typical requires 40-year tax abatements for projects it funds. He said that Beulah and HELP were able to get an exception from Freddie Mac to permit a 30-year tax abatement, pending approval by the alders.
Winter also pointed out the recent awarding of $1 million in Urban Act funding from the state.
After the alders’ unanimous vote of support, Beulah Chief of Operations Darrell Brooks said that the development plans to close on the last of its remaining financing in May, and should have shovels in the ground for this project by May or June.
So how do struggling working class families in Newhallville that are paying $8,000 property taxes feel about other people getting taxed $400?