Thomas Breen photos
A squatter’s spot on the porch of 43 Ward. Below: Hill North management team chair Howard Boyd, who has led the charge for action.
Two boarded-up Ward Street houses that stand across the street from a Hill elementary and middle school have become hot spots for squatters and drug users — and are slated to be demolished next week, according to the local landlord who owns them.
The properties in question are 43 and 47 Ward St. Both are owned by holding companies controlled by Matthew Harp, the owner of the large local real estate company Renaissance Management and the son of Mayor Toni Harp.
47 and 43 Ward St.
The properties have long provoked concern by neighbors, who call it a blighted magnet for drug abuse in a stretch of town already inundated with problem locations.
On Tuesday evening, Hill North Community Management Team Chair Howard Boyd pointed out the two problem properties as the sun began to set before the team’s regular monthly meeting in the auditorium of John C. Daniels Interdistrict Magnet School of International Communication at the corner of Ward Street and Congress Avenue.
Both buildings stand across the street from John C. Daniels and down the block from the APT Foundation methadone clinic, which neighbors have long criticized for allowing patients to hang out on surrounding streets before, after, and in between treatments.
Boyd said that, ever since the summer of 2018, he and his fellow Hill North residents have seen an uptick in people sleeping, smoking, drinking, and loitering on the porches of the two adjacent houses.
He’s not sure whether or not the users are connected to APT, he said. All he knows is that people are spending more and more time there, turning the derelict buildings into popular gathering spots for illicit activity.
In the morning of Aug. 1, emergency responders found a dead body underneath the school’s loading dock, just a few dozen feet across the street from these two properties and a half-block from APT. Asst. Police Chief Karl Jacobson told the Independent that the investigation into the dead body, which has yet to be identified, is still ongoing. Police found drug paraphernalia, including needles, on the scene that day and at this point believe the death was caused by an overdose, he said.
“They call the Hill ‘The Walking Zombie’ now,” Boyd said Tuesday as he peered down the block from the school’s Ward Street side-entrance to the boarded-up houses, where a small group of adults stood talking, smoking, and laying down blankets for the cool fall night ahead.
Hill top cop Sgt. Justin Marshall: “It is on our radar.”
“It’s been an issue for a while,” Livable City Initiative (LCI) Art Natalino, Jr. confirmed about the two houses after the management team meeting. “We continue to do what we can with the anti-blight enforcement process. And we will continue to do that going forward.”
Hill top cop Sgt. Justin Marshall agreed. “Art and I are working very closely on the law enforcement end of addressing any loitering or trespassing there,” he said. “It is on our radar.”
Matthew Harp, whose holding companies 43 Ward LLC and 47 Ward LLC bought the two properties in September 2018 and January 2012 respectively, told the Independent Wednesday that LGE Services LLC has been under contract since May to demolish the adjacent boarded-up homes.
He and his contractor have run into five months of delays securing the necessary permits and state approvals to remediate asbestos at the property and then knock them down, he said.
All that paperwork is now set, he added. The environmental remediation should be done this Saturday, and the buildings should be coming down early next week, he vowed.
43 Ward.
“We wanted to get ahead of this problem because we understood that people were coming from the APT Foundation and loitering on our property,” he said about why he started the regulatory process of demolishing the buildings back in May, before the summer began.
Unfortunately, he said, he had little control over just how long it would take for state and environmental remediation approvals to come through.
He added that his company has undertaken biweekly inspections since May to make sure that the properties were safe and secure.
LGE Services’ Louis Gherlone confirmed that his company and Harp have been under contract to demolish the two buildings since late May. The delays, he said, have come from testing all the buildings for environmental hazards, and then getting pricing for asbestos removal, and then giving notice to the state. “Unfortunately, when there’s asbestos involved, it takes three to four months,” he said.
He said he filled out the three necessary demolition permits on Wednesday, and is waiting for one last disconnect letter from the water company and from the sewer company. He said he already has disconnects from the gas and electricity companies. He said asbestos removal should take place Friday or Saturday, and demolition sometime next week.
Nevertheless, Boyd said, these properties have been active hangout spots for a while, dating back at least to the summer of 2018. They may be boarded up, he said, but at least their porches are still very much in use.
Underneath the front porch of 43 Ward.
On Tuesday morning around 8:30 a.m., after students had arrived at John C. Daniels to start their school day, this reporter saw firsthand a small group of adults that had already gathered on the porch of 43 Ward.
Empty plastic bottles lined the porch’s railing. Cigarette butts were strewn across the front yard. An assortment of trash and debris was piled in the crawl space beneath the front steps.
“You paying for stories?” one woman asked in a hoarse whisper in response to this reporter’s question about whether or not she knew anything about the dead body found across the street in August. She stumbled over a small bicycle as she sought to pull a hoodie over her violently shaking body.
“No thank you, no thank you, no thank you,” said a man in a red baseball cap with a cigarette held loosely between his lips.
The trashed back yard of 47 Ward.
Meanwhile, behind 47 Ward St., small piles of trash stood before a boarded-up, two-car garage. A solitary man stood nearby (just to the left of the above photo’s frame), shaking and stumbling in place as he stared at the back fence.
The city online land records database shows that both of these properties have presented problems for the city for some time, in some cases well before Harp bought them.
In Oct. 2015, LCI filed an anti-blight civil citation against then-landlord Reginald Maynard for leaving 43 Ward with unregistered vehicles parked on the property, junk and debris strewn throughout the driveway, and a dilapidated exterior.
In Jan. 2019, four months after Harp’s 43 Ward LLC company had purchased the building, LCI hit the new landlord with a $216 lien for the cost of securing the property on Dec. 31, 2018.
Ward Street looking towards Congress Avenue.
As for 47 Ward, which the holding company 47 Ward LLC purchased in 2012, the city filed an anti-blight civil citation against the landlord in Jan. 2016 for having trash and debris on the property and a blighted exterior. The city subsequently released Harp’s company from that citation in Aug. 2017.
In January 2019, LCI filed a $402 lien on the property to cover the cost of securing it on Dec. 31, 2018. The city subsequently released Harp’s company from that lien on July 12.
According to the state business registry, 47 Ward LLC is legally owned by a Quogue, New York-based real estate private equity fund and national developer called Municipal Capital Appreciation Partners. Harp confirmed for the Independent Wednesday that he owns both 43 Ward and 47 Ward. He has long partnered with the New York-based developer.
Harp declined to comment on what he plans to do with the two properties once the buildings are knocked down.
Slumlord at it's best...using the LLC veil..brought 1 property in 2012...did nothing...
brought the other property 2018 ..did nothing.
Harp is an inherited slumlord. Left these properties just like the rest of the properties in New Haven and in Ansonia that was condemned.
The city should crack down...oh wait it's the mayor's son...
..