Co-op Has New Owner, New Rules

Families at Ethan Gardens met their new landlord for the first time and got a taste of new rules — and a new day — coming to their failed former co-op.

Some two dozen residents of the complex gathered Tuesday night in a basement room at Immanuel Baptist Church to meet officials from Pike International, the management company that bought the 28-unit, three-building property at 365 Orchard St. at the end of February.

It was a part of a story that’s becoming more common around town as an idealistic approach to housing runs its course.

(Pictured above: Tenant Raquan West with the ​“Smurfs” he said his grandmother Carolyn West planted in her small front yard. Grandmother and grandson live next door to each other.)

Ethan Gardens, located between Edgewood Avenue and Chapel Street near the Hospital of St. Raphael, is one of several co-ops built in the 1960s amid hopes that government-backed co-ops could provide safe and affordable housing for low-income working families. For years that concept worked. Now, four decades, later many of those co-ops are gradually failing and falling into private hands.

That’s about to happen, for instance, around the street from Ethan Gardens, at the Dwight Co-ops. It happened at Canterbury Gardens and Trade Union Plaza.

It began happening five years ago at Ethan Gardens (which has another claim to local history — one of its apartments briefly served as Black Panther Party headquarters in 1969, and a famous pre-murder torture of a falsely accused informer took place there).

On Tuesday night Pike International Director of Operations Evan Schmidt described the get-together as the new owners’ ​“meet and greet to discuss the logistics of the change in ownership.”

It was important, he said, to avoid the frequent miscommunication that accompanies a transition in ownership.

He ought to know. Pike International, formerly known as Saturn Rentals, owns some 700 apartments in New Haven alone, from 80 Sherman Ave. to 320 Quinnipiac Av., as well as all around the state. Ethan Gardens is the first complex most of the tenants are federally subsidzed Section 8 families.

Pike’s officials were doing a little learning of the rules and regulations themselves, just like the tenants, said Carol Smith, the leasing manager.

One of the changes noted on the sheet noticing the Tuesday meeting: Tenants may no longer pay rent in cash. Smith said that the previous private owner, who took the building over five years ago from the cooperative management, did that a lot, as well as keeping poor records.

As a result, many of the leases have expired or are about to.

That’s what triggered Porsche Collins’ concern. Collins (pictured) was raised in Ethan Gardens, moved away, and then returned to take care of her grandparents. After her grandmother died in 2004, she was able to obtain an apartment to help take care of her grandfather. He died last year.

Collins’ apartment is one of approximately half a dozen that have non-Section 8,market-rate rents. When she moved in four years ago, her income was considerably less than now.

It is a two-bedroom, including utilities; the rent is $750. That’s well below market, and she knows the rent will likely go up under the new management. But how much? She came to the meeting wondering that.

She said she also went on line to check out Pike’s site and saw that some apartments they own charge for utilities. That could be a new and expensive wrinkle. Would that change be implemented? And there was even a rumor that parking would now entail additional cost. Was it true?

Schmidt tried to allay tenants’ anxieties. He said Pike inherited a building with a huge amount of deferred maintenance, including a need for a new roof, furnace, pump for the parking lot, new sidewalks, and much else. They were preparing to invest anywhere from $200,000 to $600,000 in the building.

But in exchange, ​“it’s a two way street,” Schmidt said.

The means the new owners pledged to do a lot more cleaning, grassing of the spaces, and improve lighting and security. But tenants would have to be more responsible too, and not pay in cash.

As to rents and Collins’ inquiry, that would be decided on a case by case basis, Schmidt said. ​“We haven’t determined yet the exact rent adjustment. In general rents do go up, like anything else.”

The Section 8 tenants would likely see no new expense in exchange for the improvements, which were promised right away, according to Schmidt. But they would have to certify they’re eligible for the federal program (and therefore the subsidies that go to landlords) in order to remain in the building.

“Maybe [the previous owner] took in people who didn’t meet the income requirements,” said Smith. She said she is taking training in how to do the certifications at the housing authority.

A social worker by training, Collins wanted to be sure others attended the meeting and would ask questions.

After a slow and silent start, she was not disappointed. Diane Cooper (pictured in blue) asked for more exterior lighting. Schmidt duly took notes. Another tenant complained of rodents including squirrels and mice. Duly noted.

“We’re not like your previous landlords,” Schmidt said several times. ​“Our plan is to put a lot of money into the property to improve it for the current residents.” He said hopes that as a result the neighborhood around 365 Orchard would improve too.

By the end of the meeting most of the Sec 8 tenants knew to continue to pay their current rent and to recertify when necessary. The market-rate tenants like Collins were making appointments with Smith. Her lease is over on March 31; she needs to make plans

Collins said she’d like to stay in Ethan Gardens, where she knows everyone and is known. Yet she can’t do that if the rent is jacked up to, say, $1250 a month. Smith said she’d like to help. But in the building, even with market rate tenants, HUD guidelines have to be followed. If not at Ethan Gardens, then perhaps she’d want to look at one of Pike’s many other properties?

Work on the Ethan Gardens roof is beginning soon, officials said. Longtime tenant Carolyn West said her perennials, including a new type from Hawaii, will soon sprout.

“Put a sign on it: Flowers Coming Up’,” one of the Pike officials said, ” so the roofing guys don’t step on them.”