Middle Class Moves In

Public school custodian David Wiel and his wife Maria have two boys, two, girls, and a schnauzer.They just took the next step in their American Dream with the purchase of their first home in a little-known enclave that just might be the model for keeping New Haven’s middle class in town.

They celebrated along with the developers Michael Massimino (with scissors at center) of MassDevelopment and his team at what is being called Redridge Preserve. It’s a bucolic circle of 20 brand new three-bedroom colonial-style houses nestled at the end of Dell Drive at the eastern side of the Bishop Woods Bird Sanctuary.

The Wiels had been renting a house owned by Massimino. In addition to the dream of first-time homeownership, what drew them to buy was ​“the beautiful setting and the area,” David Wiel said, pointing out the bird sanctuary trails that rim half the circle.

Wiel’s 2,150-square foot house has three bedrooms and two and half baths, stainless steel appliances, granite kitchen countertops, garages, yards, decks, and a finished basement. All 20 similar homes in the development sell for between $229,000 and $249,000.

Although he groused about the taxes on his new house (about $5,000), Wiel said he had a good deal.

Of the 20 homes, 16 are under contract, according to Massimino.

Local, middle-class families are moving in. Of the 16, t12 are New Haveners like Wiel. They include a nurse from Yale-New Haven Hospital, a nurse from St. Raphael’s, a librarian, and assistant manager for the North Haven branch of Bank of America, Andres Montoya.

Montoya (left in photo, with his son Andres, Jr.) just met his new neighbors, the Wiels, and their daughter Ava (pictured at the top).

Five other houses have been completed; Massimino expects to finish 13 by November. The plan is for all to be finished by the first of the year.

Maria Wiel said you can hear the birds at all hours of the day. Even while construction goes on it’s quiet because of the berm-like design of the site, which features 16 houses in a circle and four in the raised middle, with a public green area off to the side cheek by jowl with one of the sanctuary trails.

Developer Massimino said he’s built comparably sized houses in Morris Cove and other areas that sold in the $325,000 range. These homes were already being appraised at $289,000, he said.

“I have two small children,” Montoya said, pointing to a central circular green, which will serve as one of the new neighborhood’s public areas. The safety of the enclosure appealed to him, as did the spacious rooms, amenities and spanking new construction.

“I’m not handy,” he added.

The development has a tortured real estate history. Ten years ago former developers had succeeded in zoning it for elderly housing; that plan fell through. When the housing authority sought to pick up the development for its scattered site housing obligations, neighbors objected.

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The area languished until a year ago when Massimino and his two brothers of Branford-based Mass Development succeeded in getting zoning restrictions lifted. Cathedral ceilings were permitted and other features that would attract what Massimino refers to as ​“eco-boomers.”

The 1970s and 1980s were for baby boomers, now retirees, he said. ​“That market was saturated.,” he said.

So this development was focused on those buying homes for the first time, young families with parents in in their 20s and 30s.

The underlying PDU (or planned development unit) that was put in place for elderly housing remains.

That means Redridge Preserve is not a condo association. But Wiel, Montoya, and others who move in will be required to form an association that takes care of the cleaning of the immediate road areas, snow plowing, the garbage pick up, street lights, and insurance.

Massimino said the recession helped him keep costs down, because vendors and trades people needed the work.

“We have older housing stock [in New Haven]. This is a contemporary version of my bungalow in Westville,” said Michael Pinto of the city’s economic development office. ​“We haven’t built a product [like this and at this price point] designed for the middle class buyer in years. These guys are showing it can be done.”