Town Council Votes To Allocate $6.4M To Fixing Newhall Foundations

It was a move made at the eleventh hour. Specifically, 11:45 p.m.

That was when, as the Hamden Legislative Council was closing out its final session of the fiscal year, Councilwoman Rhonda Caldwell introduced a new item of business, one that a group of neighbors in the Newhall area of Hamden have been fighting to realize for years, and one that, when the session was over, likely signaled the end of a community campus project standing in its way. 

At stake were a portion of the federal American Recovery Plan (ARPA) funds awarded to the town of Hamden. Early in 2024, the legislative council allocated $9.1 million of those funds to create a new community campus on the site of a former middle school in Newhall. It also earmarked $3.5 million to repair crumbling homes caused by years of New Haven manufacturers dumping industrial waste — and a cleanup effort that didn’t leave the job finished.

At a legislative council meeting on Dec. 2, 2024, Caldwell raised a motion to reallocate roughly $6.4 million originally slated for the community campus for fixing the Newhall foundations. The funds, members of the Hamden Newhall Neighbors Association (HNNA) maintained, represented a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the town to make things right with Newhall property owners, as opposed to a community campus that neighbors say is not a priority.

That night, the 15-member council agreed to table any vote on the $6.4 million allotted for the community center until the engineering firm hired by the town had completed their assessments of the 300 impacted properties, parking the money in a general town fund. 

Over six months later, as the minutes ticked toward midnight last Monday, Caldwell moved to untable the Dec. 2 decision that postponed the disposition of the $6.4 million until completion of the assessments. That motion passed. She then moved that the money be transferred to a restricted account dedicated to repairing the foundations.

“Haley & Aldrich [the engineering firm] gave us assurances in December that they would have the majority of the assessments wrapped up by the end of April,” she said. ​“We’re still waiting. The time is now to get started on those repairs.” 

Caldwell said she was prompted by the revelation that the town had been using the ARPA funds on salaries. ​“If this council does not make a move on that $6.4 million and give it to the people for their homes, they’ll never see it,” she said.

Council President Dominique Baez preached patience. ​“A good chunk of the assessments have been completed, but they’re not 100 percent completed,” she said. While acknowledging that the foundation repair took priority over a community campus, she cautioned ​“there’s still work to be done for the foundations and I’m not ready to move money until it is.” She then expressed confidence that the ​“fund balance will be in a safe place even after June 30.” 

Councilmember Abdul Osmanu spoke next, addressing Caldwell. ​“I think we have a shared definition of ​‘foundations first,’ as actually putting this money toward those repairs, not prioritizing it, but doing it now,” he said. 

Councilmember Laurie Sweet thanked the members of the Fifth District — those in the HNNA, as well as their neighbors — for their patience. ​“We’ve now had you here for 4 ½ hours and I think the question to this body is how many more times are we going to ask them to come out and come to the podium and ask us to do the right thing,” she said. ​“It’s late, I’m tired, I’m angry.”

With that, Baez called for a vote to move the funds into the Newhall foundations restricted account. It passed with one no vote and one abstention. 

There was jubilation.

In a phone interview, Mayor Lauren Garrett registered surprise. ​“I was not aware they were making that motion until it happened,” she said. Even so, she said, ​“the funds aren’t going to speed anything up because we couldn’t possibly do construction without the design work done, it would be illegal for us to do that, and it’s going to take time.”

She said the assessments, which are being done on a rolling basis, are ongoing, with one to two properties per day. ​“It’s a ton of work because of the sheer number of homes impacted and we want to get it right,” she said. 

To the HNNA’s recurring contention that they can get started on repairs without every last house being assessed, Garrett reiterated that the engineering firm was the one dictating the work required to make the properties whole. She allowed that houses with water intrusion issues — commonly, those considered the least impacted — would likely be addressed first.

Regarding the community campus, she said, ​“we’re looking at different opportunities.” 

“The foundations project is not for $6.4 million,” she added. ​“It’s more likely $20 million.”

That didn’t seem to faze Caldwell. ​“Now that we have the money, no matter who the mayor is, we can start to get the work done,” she said after the meeting, referring to this November’s mayoral election.

During the public input session earlier Monday evening, HNNA President Tina Jennings-Harriott sounded a similar refrain. ​“You can take the mayor’s seat, you can take the mayor’s problems, but we’re not going anywhere,” she said. ​“We’re here and we’re going to be here as long as it takes. It ends with us.”