City Cleared To Buy Vacant House, Office Building In Fair Haven

Alders overwhelmingly signed off on the city purchasing a medical office building and a vacant three-family house on Grand Avenue for up to $460,000 — to further plans to convert three adjacent Fair Haven brownstones into six units of new housing.

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.

All but two of the roughly two dozen alders present voted in support of the city purchasing the three-story medical office building at 350 Grand Ave. for up to $155,000. They also voted in support of the city buying the boarded-up, fire-damaged three-family house at 346 Grand Ave. for up to $305,000.

Both prospective property deals would be between the city and Fair Haven Community Health Care, which already owns 350 Grand Ave. and which has an option to buy 346 Grand Ave. from its current owner, Frank Sacco.

As detailed at a recent Livable City Initiative (LCI) Property Acquisition and Disposition Committee (PAD) meeting, LCI plans to convert 350 Grand, 346 Grand, and the derelict, city-owned single-family home at 342 Grand Ave. into three new two-family homes.

All three of these planned residential rehabs would be made available to homeowner occupants making between 60 and 100 percent of the area median income (AMI). Those owners would then have the option of renting out the second units in their respective homes.

“This makes sense,” Fair Haven Alder Jose Crespo said about the city’s purchases of 346 and 350 Grand Ave. ​“It would be ideal” to convert vacant and office structures into new, renovated housing on this section of Grand Avenue.

At that same September PAD meeting, LCI’s Evan Trachten spoke about how the city’s planned residential development on Grand Avenue ​“will help strengthen the block as [Fair Haven Community Health Care] builds a new building at the end of the street,” alluding to future development plans the health center may have for the stretch of Grand Avenue closer to James Street.

“Fair Haven Community Health Care is very invested in our community and we want to ensure that attractive, affordable housing is available to Fair Haven residents, now and in the future,” Fair Haven Community Health Care CEO Suzanne Lagarde told the Independent in September when asked for comment about the city property purchases. ​“We see this collaboration with the city as an important first step and we look forward to working closely with both the City and the Fair Haven community to bring this to fruition.”

Affordability? Cost? Process?

The two alders who voted against the city property purchases Monday night were Downtown Alder Abby Roth and Newhallville/Prospect Hill Alder Steve Winter.

Roth voted against after pushing back on the level of affordability, and the process that led to Monday night’s vote in the first place.

Based on an Affordable Housing Commission report included as a communication on Monday’s agenda, Roth said, the greatest affordable housing need in the city is for renters making well under 50 percent AMI.

“The AMI for this is higher than it should be for affordable housing” needed in the city, Roth said about LCI’s plans for the properties. She said the alders should push for a deeper level of affordability at the projects.

She and Winter also expressed concerns about the cost of rehabilitating these properties.

During the public information caucus before Monday’s full board meeting, city attorney Michael Pinto said that each property will likely cost around $350,000 to rehabilitate up to state and federal historic renovation standards. The city’s ​“probably looking at a little over $1 million for the three properties” on top of the costs of purchasing 346 and 350 Grand, Pinto said.

Winter asked Pinto if the city plans to tap into the state historic home rehabilitation program to help fund the costs of those renovations. Pinto replied by saying that the city hasn’t ​“worked out all the funding sources yet,” but ​“most of the rehab money will probably be federal money.”

“If we are renovating historic structures to historic standards,” Winter said during Monday’s full board meeting, ​“I think we ought to find a way to use state programs that are set up” to help cover those costs.

These issues of affordability and rehabilitation costs could have been discussed and debated in greater detail by alders, Roth said during Monday’s floor debate, if the proposed city purchases went to an aldermanic committee for review. But they did not.

Unlike every other non-unanimous-consent legislative item, proposed city land deals like Monday’s are not heard by an aldermanic committee, but instead are heard by LCI’s PAD committee, the City Plan Commission, and LCI’s Board of Directors before going to the alders for a final vote.

Just because this is the way it’s always done doesn’t mean this is how the process should work, Roth said, raising a similar critique that she offered earlier this Fall about another city property deal.

Dixwell Alder Jeanette Morrison and Board of Alders Majority Leader and Westville/Amity Alder Richard Furlow took up the cause in urging their colleagues to support the city property purchases.

“If we can reconstruct this area and make it a better, safer situation for the residents that live in this area, we have that responsibility,” Morrison said.

She also said that the cost of rehabilitation in these cases should not deter the city from doing its best to improve the area for Fair Haven residents. ​“In various communities, there are things that are bigger than just costs,” Morrison said. ​“Sometimes, you have to invest to clean up certain areas in order to make them safe.”

Furlow agreed. ​“All throughout our city, people are crying for help,” he said. He called on his legislative colleagues to act now to move forward with renovations and rehabilitations of buildings that have been sitting vacant, in some cases for years.

“Let’s vote in favor of this,” he said. ​“Let’s not penalize our residents because of our process.”