Dixwell Deal Revised To Boost Housing

For the fourth time in five years, alders signed off on selling a vacant city-owned garage to a local pizza maker-turned-landlord — this time on the condition that he convert the property into five apartments with at least one unit reserved for low-income tenants.

Local legislators took that vote Monday night during the latest regular bimonthly meeting of the full Board of Alders, which took place in the Aldermanic Chamber on the second floor of City Hall.

The alders voted unanimously in support of amending a land disposition agreement (LDA) that calls for the city to sell 55 Dixwell Ave. to Brick Oven Pizza owner Kadir Catalbasoglu and his wife Fatma for $32,500.

The alders originally approved a land deal for this property back in May 2017 with the condition that the Catalbasoglu’s convert the existing garage into two apartments, and then construct a commercial building at the front of the property. 

Alders then amended that deal in April 2019 and April 2021 for the sake of extending the original agreement’s expiration date.

On Monday, alders voted yet again to amend the agreement — this time to drop the commercial building condition and to increase the number of required new apartments from two to five. The amendment states that at least one of those apartments must be reserved for at least 20 years for tenants making no more than 60 percent of the area median income (AMI), with a mandatory review by the alders of that affordability condition to take place no later than 18 years into the deal.

Kadir Catalbasoglu told the Independent in a Tuesday morning phone interview that he ​“just wants to make that piece [of property] better looking. It does not look good now” both for his existing seven-unit apartment building right next door at 59 Dixwell, as well as for the neighborhood at large.

He said he plans to begin construction soon after closing on the property. And he noted that a lawsuit by an adjacent landlord that held up the project for years has now been resolved.

During Monday night’s Board of Alders meeting, Dixwell Alder Jeanette Morrison said that, when this land deal originally came before the board in 2017, the city did not have an inclusionary zoning (IZ) law in place. That law, passed earlier this year, requires developers to set aside a certain number of apartments in market-rate complexes at below-market rents.

Morrison framed Monday night’s amendment as bringing this property in line with the goals of IZ, particularly because Catalbasoglu has already built up seven new apartments right next door at a former funeral home at 59 Dixwell Ave.

“Even though this development will have one unit that’s affordable, that’s definitely a step in the right direction,” she said about 55 Dixwell. ​“Today it’s one, tomorrow it will be 100.” She said the amendment to the 55 Dixwell land deal Monday night will send a message to developers looking to build in New Haven that they ​“need to come with a mindset that affordable needs to be a part of your project.”

Click here and here for previous Independent articles about how Catalbasoglu’s initial planned development of 55 Dixwell Ave. was consistently stymied in part by a lawsuit with another landlord who claimed that he and not the city owned the driveway and dilapidated garage at 55 Dixwell, and about how the city sought to facilitate Catalbasoglu’s development of the adjacent property by granting him an easement.

Click here to read the full text of Monday night’s now-approved amendment.

Tax Break Program Updated To Allow "Mixed Use Developments"

The 55 Dixwell Ave. land deal wasn’t the only legislative item that alders voted to amend Monday night with the goal of boosting new residential housing in the Dixwell neighborhood.

Local legislators also voted unanimously in support of amending the city’s tax assessment deferral program, the latest version of which alders originally approved in 2019 and then amended in January of this year.

That program, which was first implemented in 1975, seeks to incentivize investment and construction in New Haven by phasing in how much developers and other property owners have to pay in taxes over the course of several years for properties they seek to improve by at least 35 percent of their current assessed value. 

Monday night’s amendment updated the program’s language to allow for so-called ​“mixed income developments” — that is, housing developments that contain both deed-restricted affordable apartments and market-rent apartments — to receive the assessment deferral benefit for the market-rate rentals. Previously, the law stated that market-rate apartments could receive such a benefit only if they were in a separate building from the below-market-rent units.

In Monday letter to the Board of Alders in support of this amendment, city Deputy Economic Development Administrator Steve Fontana explained that the impetus for this now-approved amendment is a planned new five-story, 176-unit apartment complex at 291 and 309 Ashmun St. and 176 – 186 Canal St. Local developer Yves Joseph’s company won site plan approval from the City Plan Commission for the project in February.

Back in December 2020, the Board of Alders voted to sell this fenced-in 1.7‑acre site to Joseph’s company for $500,000. As part of that Development and Land Disposition Agreement (DLDA) and tax break deal, the new apartment complex must set aside 33 percent of its units at deed-restricted below-market rents over the course of the 15-year accord. (See here for more details.) 

“As part of the closing process, the developer wished to take advantage of the Assessment Deferral Program, which is common for new developments,” Fontana wrote in his amendment-supporting letter to the alders on Monday. ​“However, because Ashmun/Canal already has a tax benefit through the Low Income and Supportive Housing Tax Agreement (“LISHTA”) process for the affordable units, the developer cannot take advantage of Assessment Deferral for the non-affordable components (e.g. the commercial space and market rate units in the new building). In fact, the current LISHTA and Assessment Deferral programs only work in tandem when the affordable housing units and market-rate housing units are separated into unique buildings or parcels.

“Given our collective effort to enhance mixed-income communities in the same building, the City wishes to bring forward Amendment #2 to the Assessment Deferral Program Resolution to account for and encourage the further development of residential buildings with a mix of incomes.”

Speaking to her local legislative colleagues in support of the amendment Monday night, Morrison again referenced the IZ law — and the city’s and the alders’ goal of promoting more affordable housing citywide.

The developer of this property ​“came to the door with inclusionary zoning in mind,” she said, and they committed to reserving 59 of the new apartments at below-market rents. But, she said, ​“they were not eligible for the assessment deferral program [on the market-rate apartments] because the language was archaic, the language needs to be clarified. And that’s what we’re doing tonight.” 

Click here, here and here to read the full text of the now-amended assessment deferral program resolution.