26 New Apts. OK’d For McConaughy Terrace

The public housing authority’s ongoing transformation of the far west side of the city took another step forward, as City Plan commissioners unanimously approved plans to construct 26 new apartments at McConaughy Terrace.

Commissioners took that vote last Wednesday night during their most recent monthly meeting. The four-hour-long virtual meeting was held this past Wednesday evening online via Zoom.

The commissioners voted unanimously in support of the Glendower Group’s site plan application to construct six new multi-family buildings containing a total of 26 new dwelling units at 2 South Genesee St. and 436 Valley St.

The Glendower Group is the nonprofit development wing of the local public housing authority umbrella organization, Elm City Communities.

Elm City Communities Vice President of Development Edward LaChance said that those new buildings will be constructed atop currently vacant plots where now-demolished larger buildings once stood as part of the larger McConaughy Terrace public housing complex.

All six new buildings will be two stories each; four buildings containing 18 units will be built at 436 Valley, and two buildings containing eight new units will be built at 2 South Genesee.

Added to McConaughy’s existing 196 dwelling units, the west side public housing complex will grow after this new construction is complete to over 220 dwelling units in total.

“McConaughy Terrace is the largest family housing development still under control by the housing authority,” LaChance told the commissioners. ​“Our goal is to rehabilitate this development and convert it to a Project Based Voucher system.”

The housing authority has used that same process multiple times over the past decade-plus — including at Farnam Courts / Mill River Crossing, Rockview, and the upcoming Valley Street redevelopment. The process shifts ownership of dedicated affordable apartments from a public housing authority to public-private partnerships through the use of project-based Section 8 subsidies.

Changing the federal subsidy structure for those affordable units allows public housing agencies to borrow against those newly-transferred properties and use federal tax credits to attract private investors to help fund major capital improvements. The process has been a defining feature of housing authority redevelopments during Elm City Communities Executive Director Karen DuBois-Walton’s tenure at the helm of the agency.

“We would be able to rehabilitate all 196 units on the site,” LaChance said about the planned McConaughy Terrace improvements. That would be in addition to ​“constructing six new buildings and 26 units.”

DuBois-Walton told the Independent after Wednesday’s meeting that her agency is currently ​“completing all the due diligence to get to financial closing” for the planned McConaughy Terrace rehab and construction. That means ​“finalizing construction contracts” and ​“holding resident meetings [about] construction, relocations, etc.”

“At closing,” she continued, ​“the property officially transfers from the low income public housing program to the Rental Assistance Demonstration Program and begins to be funded under the federal housing choice voucher platform.”

She said the housing authority expects to close on financing in the first quarter of 2022. Construction should be completed by October 2023.

Once completed, the McConaughy Terrace redo would be just the latest among a suite of housing authority-controlled properties to be rebuilt or substantially rehabbed on the far west side of town. Those include multi-phase redevelopments of Brookside, Rockview, Ribicoff Cottages (now called Twin Brook), and Wilmont Crossing, as well as in-the-works redevelopments of Westville Manor and Valley Street.

Adding Accessible Units; Virtually No Vacancies

McConaughy Terrace dates back to the mid-1940s. ​“It’s held up pretty well” given its age, LaChance noted.

The biggest issues that the housing authority has found with the property are that it lacks one-bedroom units on site, and it lacks handicap-accessible units.

Adding one-bedroom apartments would allow ​“households to have the ability to age on site” by moving into a smaller unit, and thereby freeing up larger units for new families.

LaChance said that the new construction will add three accessible Type A units, and three accessible Type B units.

He also said that McConaughy Terrace has ​“an extremely low vacancy rate.” Currently, the 196-unit complex has a total of four vacant units — ​“and they’re all being rented by next week.”

City Plan Commission Chair Leslie Radcliffe praised the planned two-building, 26-unit construction project as ​“a great addition” to McConaughy Terrace.

“There’s definitely the space for it,” she said. ​“It’s not going to be overly densified. I like the way the space is being used; [it] could definitely accommodate the families that will live there.” And there’s ​“still lots of green, next to the beautiful West Rock” state park.

With that, all of the commissioners present voted unanimously in support of the site plan.