Aneurin Canham-Clyne Photo
Dolores Colon and Evan Trachten at Wednesday’s LCI board meeting.
New affordable homes are on tap for two properties the city aims to sell in the Hill and Fair Haven and another the city intends to purchase.
The board of the Livable City Initiative (LCI) voted to approve all three proposed sales at its monthly meeting Wednesday at City Hall. Now the Board of Alders will consider the sales for final approval.
One of the deals involves LCI, city government’s neighborhoods agency, buying a property with a burned-out house at 388 Blatchley Ave. for $7,000 from not-for-profit Beulah Land Development.
LCI is in the process of building a single-family home on a vacant lot two doors down at 384 Blatchley, reported Evan Trachten, LCI’s acquisitions coordinator, following the reconstruction of 384 Blatchley. LCI would then build another single-family home for an owner-occupant at 388 Blatchely.
City Point Alder Dolores Colon, who sits on the LCI board, expressed concern that a fire-damaged structure like 388 Blatchley would be difficult to repair.
Trachten responded that the plan is to demolish the building and build a new home from scratch.
LCI Executive Director Serena Neal-Sanjurjo said the agency is making a point these days to replace any housing it tears down with new housing, rather than create vacant lots.
Since its inception in the 1990s under Mayor John DeStefano, LCI has torn down close to 1,000 houses. Trachten lamented the zeal with which the agency pursued demolition in the past, given the high demand for affordable housing in New Haven. At the time of LCI’s inception, New Haven was losing population; since then, the population has grown.
“I wish we had about 70 percent of the houses we knocked down,” Trachten said.
The LCI board then discussed and approved the proposed sale of a vacant lot at 41 – 43 Button St. for $2,000 to the Columbus House homeless agency. Columbus House plans to build a two-story home there through the annual building program with students at Yale’s architecture school.
Colon expressed reservations about some of the Yale designs. Previous efforts, Colon said, had resulted in family homes with concrete floors and sharp edges.
“They don’t quite seem to fit the neighborhood,” Colon said of the Yale Architecture students’ designs. Trachten said LCI is working to address design concerns going forward with the Columbus House and the students.
The LCI board voted to approve the sale on the condition that Hill South Community Management Team approves it as well. It won’t advance to the Board of Alders until the management team weighs in.
The third deal the board discussed was the proposed sale of 279 Davenport Ave. to local developer Adam Scheps for $25,000. Trachten said Scheps has worked on several other buildings in the neighborhood, including 348 Davenport Ave.
LCI foreclosed on a now-vacant single-family home at 279 Davenport Ave. Scheps would renovate it and rent it out.
Trachten noted the property doesn’t have a driveway, making it hard to sell to potential owner-occupants.
Also at Wednesday’s meeting, the LCI board approved a rewriting of an old land disposition agreement (LDA) for a developer to build apartments, now including affordable housing, at 1198 Chapel St., part of an effort by the city to revisit dormant agreements. The agreement for 1198 Chapel St., now, now advances to the Board of Alders. Click here to read a full story about that issue.
I have been involved with my community management team for many years and appreciate the valuable role they play. But I'm wary of giving unelected CMTs legal authority, which appears to be case in Hill South. CMTs represent a tiny fraction of a neighborhood's residents. My CMT typically has 20-30 people show up at its meetings; the neighborhood has about 10,000 residents. Moreover, CMT members tend to be older homeowners, in a city where the average age is under 30 and 70% of residents are renters.