Laura Glesby photo
Commissioners William Kilpatrick, Alberta Witherspoon, and Elmer Rivera at Tuesday's meeting.
The housing authority took one big step towards building 40 new mixed-income apartments and ground-floor retail space by the Quinnipiac River, as its board voted to spend $1.42 million to purchase an East Grand Avenue lot and nearby pizzeria.
The Housing Authority of New Haven’s Board of Commissioners made that unanimous vote Tuesday to approve a proposal for the agency to buy 16 and 36 East Grand Ave., two Fair Haven Heights properties on either side of the Grand Vin wine shop.
The agency is buying those properties for $1.42 million from companies controlled by Carl Youngman of Newton, Mass. The two properties were most recently appraised by the city for tax purposes at a combined value of $680,000.
In conjunction with its nonprofit affiliates under the umbrella organization Elm City Communities (ECC), the Housing Authority currently plans to build about 40 new apartments on the East Grand Avenue properties, with a mix of market rate and affordable housing units.
ECC President Karen DuBois-Walton.
Thomas Breen photo
Ziggy's at 36 E. Grand.
ECC President Karen DuBois-Walton told the Independent on Monday that the organization does not plan to tear down Ziggy’s Pizza, which currently occupies the single-story commercial building at 36 East Grand Ave.
On Tuesday, ECC Vice President Shenae Draughn told commissioners that construction at both sites would accommodate businesses in addition to the housing units, “creating space where people can gather.”
Draughn said that similar ECC developments “often spur economic growth” in their neighborhoods.
The empty lot at 16 East Grand Ave.
She stressed that ECC is committed to hosting community meetings about the project and incorporating neighbors’ feedback into the design of the buildings during what is expected to be a year-long planning phase.
The project is the latest of ECC’s accelerating efforts to build more affordable housing in New Haven — from 100 mixed-income units slated for the former New Haven Clock Company building to 50 elderly housing units in West Rock to potentially 1,000 apartments where the Church Street South complex once stood — in the wake of a report it released this summer spotlighting an urgent need for more housing development to address an affordability crisis.
It would be a very good thing if something like the proposed project were developed. But any three members of the citys appointed Historic District Commission could kill the project, with little recourse.
The site is in the Quinnipiac River local historic district. Any new building there requires a certificate of appropriateness. The law gives the commission broad discretion in determining whether to issue a certificate. It allows the commission to deny a certificate for buildings that would be detrimental to the interests of the interest of the historic district.
If the commission denied the permit and the housing authority appealed, it would face an uphill fight. Since the law gives the commission broad power to reject certificate applications, the authority would have to demonstrate that the commissions action was arbitrary or capricious.