Friday, July 25, 2008

This Old Housing Problem

It's taken 15 years to replace half the public housing apartments demolished at Elm Haven. Can another lawsuit save a floundering replacement program?
Thursday, August 30, 2007
By Betsy Yagla

The house at 759 Quinnipiac Ave. nearly bought by the Housing Authority but still on the market.

It's easier to tear down than to build up. Or to scatter, as the case may be.

In the early '90s, the Housing Authority of New Haven (HANH) tore down 368 units of public housing at the notorious Elm Haven project—where Monterrey Place now stands—with relative ease (mismanagement that nearly led the feds to revoke a $40 million demolition grant notwithstanding). Replacing just half of those lost units as "scattered site" apartments, by contrast, has taken over 15 years—and it's still not done! A 1995 court-ordered settlement mandated that HANH build 183 units of subsidized housing by 1998 to replace units lost at Elm Haven, and they're still 19 units short.

Integrating public housing tenants into one and two-family homes in neighborhoods, rather than warehousing them in dense developments, has taken so long, in fact, that the attorneys for the displaced tenants have gone back to court to put pressure on the Housing Authority to finish the job.

Over the years, neighborhood opposition, high housing prices and census tract restrictions (the scattered site homes can't go in neighborhoods with high minority concentrations) have slowed the pace of replacing the Elm Haven dwellings. But in a new court filing, New Haven Legal Assistance Association attorney Shelley White argues that it's incompetence on the Housing Authority's part that's hampering progress.

White's filing asks a federal court judge to force HANH to "immediately" purchase properties in non-impacted zones that would fulfill the settlement terms, regardless of the year the home was built or whether it resides within an historic district. In the last year alone, White says, HANH has eyed three properties for scattered site homes, then backpedaled in the face of neighborhood opposition.

White's motion, filed in mid-August, details what she says is the Housing Authority's incompetence. It took HANH nearly five years, she writes, to sign a contract with a private developer to build six units on Fulton Street—property HANH has owned since 1993 and which won't be finished until 2008. The authority found a developer to build on the site in 2002 but didn't sign a contract with them until 2005. By then the contractor wanted $260,000 more for the project and the contract had to be renegotiated. Construction finally started this February.
HANH's effort to build 20 scattered site homes off Dell Drive, along the East Haven border, derailed when neighbors sued in 2004 to block the construction, and again later when the zone used to approved the site was ruled illegal by the state Appellate Court. By the time the ruling was overturned and the developer got the go-ahead in 2005, HANH was forced to commit an additional $865,000 because construction costs had risen. In 2006, though, the developer withdrew its proposal and now the homes are being built for private sale.

Since May 2006, when the Dell Drive plan fell through, the Housing Authority has acquired only one unit—21 Long Hill Terrace—and did so after promising neighbors they wouldn't buy more property in their neighborhood, says White. In the last seven years, HANH has developed and occupied 30 units that were outstanding in 2000. Nineteen sites still need to be purchased and nine that the Housing Authority already owns are vacant. The court settlement agreement mandates that HANH should fill each unit within 30 days of a home being available.

Ironically, the 20 subsidized units that HANH hopes to place in the 23-story condominium tower proposed for the downtown Shartenberg site wouldn't fulfill the obligation: HANH won't own those units—it's getting Section 8 vouchers that keep them affordably priced for years—so they can't count toward the total.

It has not been easy for HANH to find housing that meets the requirements of the settlement. Scattered site homes must go in neighborhoods where minority concentration does not exceed 47 percent, and the homes can't be so expensive that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (the federal agency funding and overseeing HANH) balks at the price. The racial requirement disqualifies most of New Haven: 71 percent of New Haven census tract groups exceed minority concentration limits, according to the 2000 census.

In June, the Housing Authority asked White to agree to relax the settlement terms to allow scattered site homes in neighborhoods with 48 to 59 percent minority concentration, and to let one-bedroom units count toward the total. (The original settlement requires scattered site homes to be family units, since that's what was lost at Elm Haven.)

The Housing Authority has a backlog of people waiting for one bedroom apartments, HANH attorney Rolan Young says in a July 11 letter to White, so allowing them as scattered site housing would achieve two goals. HANH had found 13 family units and eight one-bedroom ones it wanted to purchase in neighborhoods just over the racial limits.

In a response letter, White says she'll consider homes outside the approved neighborhoods on a case-by-case basis, but that she can't allow one-bedroom apartments "under any circumstances as the class is focused on families and not single persons."

Besides, White says, HANH has refused to consider the few homes that do qualify. She says she has suggested four homes to HANH, all of which HANH rejected because they are "historic," which are presumably older homes that would cost more to heat and maintain.

Housing Authority Chairman Bob Solomon disputes that, and says White has offered little help in the way of suggesting viable propertites to purchase.

"She doesn't have any good ideas, she doesn't help us find property. She just complains when things don't happen."

White bases her incompetence claim on what she says are the Housing Authority's hit-or-miss search tactics. HANH has a database of every property in non-impacted areas and has contacted property owners to inquire about buying the homes. This has yielded no results, White writes in her new court filing. HANH has also contacted members of the New Haven Board of Aldermen to help them find suitable housing. But that has proved counterproductive, writes White, because alders are elected by the very residents who oppose adding public housing tenants to their neighborhood.

One home that fit White's criteria for exception was 759 Quinnipiac Ave., in Fair Haven Heights. At first White planned on telling HANH "No," because the home is in a racially impacted neighborhood. But when she drove by the house and saw how beautiful it was, she says, she gave her blessing.

That decision came with its own set of troubles.

Chris Olesen and Joann Gardner own 759 Quinnipiac Ave.—a tan two-story home on top of a small hill with a bright red door, floor-to-ceiling windows and a pink rosebush in front yard. They bought the home in 2004 and in 2006 put it up for sale. The couple spent a year negotiating the sale of their home to the Housing Authority, eventually dropping their price by $70,000 to meet HANH's needs. But when HANH backed out in the face of neighborhood opposition, the couple sued for breach of contract. (The couple's attorney, Melinda Powell of Hartford, declined comment on the lawsuit.)

HANH initially offered $405,000 for the property and planned to close in March of this year, but then lowered its offer to $355,000. HANH lowered its offer a second time, to $335,000, reasoning that converting it to a two-family, removing lead paint and other renovations would drive up the cost by $195,000.

Property value and curb appeal were on people's minds at the June 25 public hearing on the purchase. The home's owners were not there, but several of their neighbors were. Neighbors essentially told HANH they didn't have a problem with poor people, but that 759 is a "key home" in a "key block" of the neighborhood. If it fell into the wrong hands, it could ruin things for area homeowners. Neighbors argued that public housing tenants would turn off potential neighbors or investors.

But the home had been on the market for a year and no one other than HANH had bid on it, said Bob Solomon, the Housing Authority chairman.

"We're at least willing to put a fair amount of money into it," Solomon told the crowd.

Neighborhood activist Chris Ozyck presented a posterboard of photos of the home's interior: standing water and piles of coal in the basement. (Olesen and Gardner claim the water in the basement is Ozyck's fault: They paid him to install drainage and claim he didn't do it. He says he did.) Solomon, exasperated, told Ozyck that HANH had already paid for environmental and lead paint studies. Ozyck also brought in paint samples to show the home needed to be lead abated.
HANH has a spotty track record as a landlord, but its scattered site properties are managed privately, and scored fair on federal inspections. One scattered site home near 759 Quinnipiac Ave. earned an 83 (out of 100) on its 2006 inspection, and another scored 80. Other properties scored worse, with walls, doorways and gutters damaged at those homes.

The day following the hearing—the day before HANH was to close on the house—they backed out of the deal.

So why do neighbors oppose more public housing on the East Shore? Is it racism, as Olesen and Gardner's lawsuit alleges? NIMBY-ism? Or something else entirely? The Heights, with lower home prices than East Rock, Westville and other whiter neighborhoods, has absorbed more scattered site homes than anywhere in New Haven: a total of 114 units, compared to the second place Annex, with only 23.

"To have people who lived in our neighborhood for two years leave and call us racist, that hurts," says the neighborhood's alderman, Alex Rhodeen. Proof that the neighborhood isn't racist are all the public housing units already there, and the fact that Rhodeen suggested HANH buy other properties in his ward.

HANH backed out of 759 Quinnipiac Ave. for financial reasons, says Solomon, though at the meeting he told neighbors, "We would not have thought to acquire this building if the budget wouldn't cover it." Directly after the meeting, Solomon says he met with staff who were concerned the cost of the home and the upkeep it would need were prohibitive.

"I think it's a good thing that you're allowed to change your mind," says Solomon. But why, during the six months HANH was negotiating with Olesen and Gardner, did the issue not come up? "We rely on outside contractors, and staff make some assessments. Sometimes someone comes in with superior knowledge," says Solomon, meaning the neighbors. "Our staff is feeling a lot of pressure because of lawsuits and threats."

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