by Noel Sims | Sep 22, 2022 11:18 am

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Posted to: Newhallville, The Hill, City Hall, Housing

28 Thompson: Don't expect any megalandord "For Rent" signs here.

Two new two-family houses and a rehabbed single-family home should soon be coming to the Hill and Newhallville, thanks to a local affordable homeownership nonprofit’s recent purchases of three underused lots from the city.

The Board of Alders voted to make those sales official Monday night during its latest full board meeting, which was held in person in the Aldermanic Chamber on the second floor of City Hall.

The alders voted unanimously in support of selling two vacant lots at 15 Winthrop Ave. and 28 – 30 Thompson St. as well as a derelict and empty single-family house at 27 Frank St. to Neighborhood Housing Services of New Haven (NHS ) for a combined total of $5,000.

NHS plans to construct new two-family houses on the Winthrop Avenue and Thompson Street lots, and it plans to rehab and bring back to life the vacant single-family house on the Frank Street lot. 

Per the alders’ approval, each new house will have a minimum 10-year homeowner occupancy requirement.

Paley: Many more lots out there.

For decades, NHS has worked in New Haven to revitalize neighborhoods, fix up derelict houses, build new homes, and provide affordable homeownership opportunities for residents earning at or below 80 percent of the area median income (AMI ), which is currently $89,400 for a family of four. 

“ New Haven has a lot of distinct neighborhoods,” NHS Executive Director Jim Paley told the Independent Tuesday. He said that in some neighborhoods, some of the largest investor-landlords, like Mandy Management, have long been buying up properties like the three that NHS just acquired, driving up the rents in neighborhoods that are predominantly ​“ people with low to moderate incomes and people of color.”

With the help of state and local subsidies, NHS will renovate these properties and sell them at affordable prices to income-eligible owner-occupants, he said. Paley told the Independent that NHS hopes to break ground on each of these three new housing projects within the month.

Click here and here to read more about the property sales approved by the alders on Monday night.

Monday night's Board of Alders meeting.

The 5,228 square-foot Winthrop Avenue lot where NHS plans to build a new two-family house has been empty for at least the last 10 years, according to Chris, who lives nearby and asked to be identified by only his first name.

Chris currently parks cars on the lot. Asked for his response to the city lot sale and planned new housing, he replied: ​“ It is what it is.” He told the Independent that he ​“ doesn’t really care” what gets built on the lot or whether it is affordable.

15 Winthrop, now owned by NHS.

The Thompson Street lot is a sliver lot that will be combined with an adjacent empty lot. NHS will build a new two-family house on top of those combined lots. The city’s Property Acquisition and Disposition (PAD ) Committee was in favor of selling this property to NHS because it has successfully renovated other properties in the area and the new home will help the neighborhood’s tax base.

The combined lot is slightly smaller than the Winthrop Avenue property, but, Paley said, NHS will build identical two-family homes on each, as well as on other lots that NHS has acquired in the Newhallville neighborhood. Paley said NHS plans to sell each new house to a single income-eligible family, who will live in one of the house’s residential units and then can rent out the second if they so choose. 

At 27 Frank St., the existing vacant house on a 3,485 square-foot lot is ​“ land-locked” between two other houses, Paley said. He said he ​“ does not expect any challenges” with the rehabilitation, though NHS has not seen the interior yet since the sale was only approved on Monday. 

LCI noted the house’s poor condition as a reason for the sale. The PAD Committee approved this sale for similar reasons as the sale of the Thompson Street lot – NHS ’s track record in the area and the benefits of increasing home ownership on the block.

The sale of these three properties to NHS is ultimately a ​“ drop in the bucket,” according to Paley. It is difficult for NHS to keep up with the ​“ mega-landlords” that Paley says dominate neighborhoods like Newhallville and the Hill because they have access to so much capital from wealthy out-of-town investors.

Still, he said, ​“ for the families that will live in these homes, it will mean a world of difference.”

A month ago, Paley said, ​“ there was a backlog of qualified homebuyers, but now that interest rates have increased, there are many less that qualify.” He still expects that NHS will find families that qualify for mortgages for these rebuilt property, and that the homes will be ready to live in by the end of 2023.

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Thank you to the Neighborhood Housing Services of New Haven for rescuing properties from the mega landlords and real estate speculators to renovate and build affordable housing for lower income home buyers. We need more housing to be built for regular New Haveners that they can afford to buy or rent. We need to keep the gentrification vampires and slumlords from acquiring a monopoly of housing in our little city, and tearing down our lovely homes and building ugly cheap materials construction housing or slapping white and grey all over the existing homes and then jacking up the rents to “market rate” rents, or to allow them to deteriorate further on the inside, and then paying a minuscule fine in housing court while the residents suffer years of mold, broken appliances, unsecured doors, and other indignities that no decent landlord would allow to continue unaddressed.

I don't understand the headline. Were there competing proposals from "mega landlords"? Did the city consider selling to another buyer, who likely would have paid more? Or was this a private, non-competitive sale?

1644, to answer your question, the New Haven Board of Alders passed a resolution that authorizes the sale of City-owned properties at a discounted price to nonprofit developers who are providing affordable homeownership opportunities to low- and moderate-income first-time homebuyers. NHS of New Haven has a solid track record of providing such opportunities--both new construction and the rehabilitation of existing dilapidated houses. We applied to the City (LCI) for these three sites, which was approved and recommended by both LCI and the City Plan Commission. NHS will be constructing three two-family houses and one single-family house in Newhallville very shortly on lots that we previously acquired from the City, and the three that were just approved by the BOA will be constructed or rehabbed shortly thereafter. I know that the title of the article may have led you to believe that we were in competition with the "mega landlords," which was not exactly the case. There is no doubt in my mind, however, that these mega landlords are helping to drive up prices in New Haven, particularly in low-income communities of color and depriving first-time homebuyers of the opportunity to become homeowners. In New Haven's housing market it is very difficult for nonprofit developers to find opportunities to acquire houses that we can either rehab or vacant lots on which we can develop affordable housing, We are doing our best to preserve the opportunities for first-time homebuyers who are able to purchase houses from us at deeply discounted prices in today's market, and both the Livable City Initiative and the Board of Alders are to be commended for making this possible. I hope that this clears up the question that you may have had about this transaction.

The sale of these three properties to NHS is ultimately a ​“drop in the bucket,” according to Paley. It is difficult for NHS to keep up with the ​“mega-landlords” that Paley says dominate neighborhoods like Newhallville and the Hill because they have access to so much capital from wealthy out-of-town investors. Correct.In fact look at who is now in the game. Jeff Bezos-Backed Arrived Homes Acquires Another $23 Million Worth Of Single-Family Rental Homes As Number Of Active Investors Doubles Kevin Vandenboss June 30, 2022·3 min read Arrived Homes, the single-family real estate investment platform backed by Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) founder Jeff Bezos, is ramping up its acquisitions as demand from retail investors grows stronger for fractional real estate. In the past 30 days, the platform has fully funded approximately $11 million worth of rental properties, compared to $5 million for the entire first quarter of 2022. The number of investors using Arrived Homes has doubled in the last two months, making it difficult for the company to purchase enough homes to meet demand. https://www.yahoo.com/video/jeff-bezos-backed-real-estate-150723551.html

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