1959 Lutheran church located at 3860 Whitney now sold to "Church of Christ LLC."
Northern Hamden will see three acres of previously private woods preserved and opened to the public — as well as a currently confidential congregation emerge within a 60-year-old church — in 2022.
Those are two upcoming developments described by sellers, buyers, donors, and donees in Hamden’s latest series of property transactions. (Check out the chart lower down in this story to see sales filed in the past week.)
The residential dead end on Still Hill Rd. faces newly donated woods.
Within that list of largely single family homes that have switched ownership are two small patches of forest located at the end of Still Hill Road. That’s because on Dec. 15, two brothers officially decided to donate two plots of land they had inherited from their father to Hamden’s Land Conservation Trust, a non-profit organization that seeks to protect open space.
Through the years since its formation in 1969 the trust has acquired several other properties through donations: 6 Elmwood Pl., 277 Thornton St., Timberwood Trail, 550 West Todd St., 3800 Whitney Ave., 2391 State St., 64 Rocky Top Rd., the corner of Servoss and Mather and The Brethren, a known split glacial erratic, on Shepard Avenue.
Each property, according to the trust’s President Gail Cameron, is used differently according to the space’s natural resources. Rocky Top Road is open to the public for hiking; multiple properties have walking paths and pollinator gardens; and while the State Street property is inaccessible to the public, it’s home to a bald eagle nest that Cameron reported can be “observed with binoculars or spotting scopes from across the street.”
The trust is in the earliest stages of determining how best to use the space at 760 Still Hill Rd., which is adjacent to town land as well as private property and nearby Brooksvale Park Trails. “The boundaries are not yet marked and we need to do a baseline assessment to make a long term stewardship plan,” Cameron said.
Tornado trees and brush make up 760 Still Hill Rd.
She said hopes the space, through which a small stream runs, will be available for people to walk and birdwatch come springtime as part of public hikes that the land trust leads.
Plus, she said, “Covid really put the damper on our public outreach programs.” If all goes as planned, those three acres will not only be open for everyone to enjoy come March and April, but favorite activities, including volunteer planting days and environmental programming featuring topics such as wildlife, conservation issues and the value of native plants will resume.
“Connecting with the public is really important to us,” Cameron asserted.
Meanwhile, just a couple of miles south, a pastor and a property manager are observing the natural life cycle — one of death and rebirth — in a less literal sense than local environmentalists.
Following a decline in membership, the town’s only two Lutheran churches, located at 600 Shepard Ave. and 3680 Whitney Ave., have merged into one congregation and sold their Whitney Avenue property — to “Church of Christ Hamden LLC,” a limited liability corporation created by Arnold Peck. Peck is the owner of Property World, a real estate firm based in Milford.
“The two churches had to experience a sort of death, which is hard,” said Pastor Josh Sullivan, who was selected five months ago to lead what is now the one and only Christ the Good Shepherd Lutheran Church. “Now, they’re through the other side and excited… we’re ready to help Hamden,” he said.
The playground and parking lot behind the church.
As Rev. Sullivan continues “trying to serve the community” through partnerships with the United Way of Greater New Haven and other local organizations, Peck is privately planning how to profit off the two buildings that he purchased for $430,000 — about $300,000 less than its appraised value — while on vacation in Paris.
3680 Whitney Ave. includes both a church built in 1959 and a two story house immediately adjacent to that. Rev. Sullivan noted that selling the property to developers was tricky because it’s situated in a stretch of Northern Hamden without sewers (Mayor Lauren Garrett has said that replacing septic tanks in that area with a sewage system is top on her list of infrastructure improvements for the next two years).
Peck declined to comment, but said that he will lease the church out to another church — though to what church, exactly, remains “confidential.”
Read through more recent property transactions below, which also feature Mandy Management purchasing a six unit apartment building located at 97 Webb St. from Homestead LLC under the title “Altshuler Investments De LLC.” They paid $675,000 for the apartments, more than $100,000 over the appraised value of $513,000.
Great news about the open space parkland being preserved for people to enjoy and to keep green and free of development.