Ansonia’s Housing Authority wants to start moving more families out of the Riverside Apartments on Olson Drive within the next two months.
Officials said demolition of the 60 apartments could begin by November. Housing officials have a redevelopment plan that would put 54 units on Olson Drive to replace the more than 160 that once stood there. There are still families in the Riverside buildings closest to the Maple Street Bridge.
However, the federal housing bureaucracy has yet to approve the redevelopment plan.
And a local fair housing advocate says the plan “does not remotely address Ansonia’s need for affordable housing.”
Background
The Riverside Apartments on Olson Drive were built in 1962.
The property represents bygone thinking about providing affordable housing — a cluster of poverty in a poorly-designed complex that became conducive to crime.
By 2000, 50 percent of the city’s serious crime was occurring within the complex. The crime rate was brought down significantly over the next decade.
But meanwhile, the aging, stigmatized complex fell further into disrepair.
The city began tearing the buildings down in September 2009.
In 2012, the Ansonia Housing Authority signed an agreement with HUD promising to demolish several apartment buildings on the side closest to Pershing Drive, and to redevelop the site with at least 48 low-income units.
A second tear-down phase started in October 2013. A chain-link fence now surrounds the site.
Open Space? Nah.
The city wanted to preserve a chunk of the site as “open space” -— and even asked residents on a referendum question last November to give the city the OK to borrow $330,000 to purchase the property -— but were shut down by federal housing officials. A federal housing discrimination complaint was also filed in connection to the open space idea.
The open space plan, federal officials said, was never an option for the federally-owned land.
A year ago the city entered into a “conciliation agreement” calling for the redevelopment of affordable housing on the site —- and the right of current residents to return there once it is redeveloped -— to settle the housing discrimination complaint.
The Future:
Last May Ansonia Mayor David Cassetti announced that he wanted to see a new public safety facility incorporated into the redevelopment of Olson Drive.
The city is spending $50,000 this year on a feasibility study to determine how much it would cost to relocate the police station, currently on Elm Street.
Cassetti’s plans called for some sort of fire department facility on the property as well, but some firefighters raised concerns the mayor wanted to close one or more of the city’s five firehouses.
Cassetti told Aldermen Tuesday (May 12) he hopes to meet with the Board of Fire Commissioners this month.
“At this time I think it is important that I repeat, I repeat, what I have stated in the past: I want the fire department’s opinion on whether or not we should also pursue a feasibility study for a state of the art fire facility (on Olson Drive),” the mayor said.
Housing Authority’s Plans
At the same time, the Housing Authority has been developing its own plans for part the property. They’re willing to set aside about 2 acres for whatever the city eventually builds.
Last fall the Housing Authority successfully sought a zone change on the land from the Planning and Zoning Commission to allow for “lower density” redevelopment of the site with 48 apartments on Olson Drive.
That number has since increased to 54 apartments — after discussions with, and presumably, some prodding by, the federal department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).
Troy White, the Ansonia Housing Authority’s executive director, gave an update on the redevelopment project at a public meeting April 29.
Click the video below to watch White talk about the housing plan.
White said he expects HUD will this month approve a “demolition and disposition” plan for the 60 apartments still standing on Olson Drive.
If and when that happens, the Housing Authority can put its redevelopment plans for the site before the Planning and Zoning Commission for approval.
Cassetti was expected to meet privately with Housing Authority officials Thursday (May 14) to discuss the redevelopment.
Article continues after video of White talking to Housing Authority members.
A timetable distributed at the meeting gives the following tentative schedule for redevelopment:
- July 1, 2015: Begin relocation of residents
- November 1: All residents relocated
- November 15: Execution of demolition contract
- April 1, 2016: Demolition completed
If HUD approves the plan, the Housing Authority will hold meetings with residents who currently live in the apartments to help them through the process.
What’s Going To Happen To People Living There?
White said residents are looking forward to the redevelopment.
“They’re queued up and awaiting the demolition approval,” White said. “Most of the residents have said ‘When you get it send me a copy because we’re ready.’”
Edward Norman, a member of the Housing Authority, asked White what will happen to those families.
“Is there like a reservation process to move back in?” he asked.
“Folks would be able to get the opportunity to be put on the waiting list that used to live at Riverside,” White replied. “So the 165 original units would have the opportunity to be put on a waiting list. That doesn’t give them a reservation, it gives them an opportunity.”
The waitlisted former residents would then be screened to see if they meet the criteria for subsidized housing, White said.
“Everybody that is remaining there will be placed in housing,” he said. “We have to make them whole.”
He pointed to 20 affordable housing vouchers available elsewhere in the city that could accommodate families.
“When you look at the aggregate number, you’re really doing 54 (unites on Olson Drive) plus 20 (vouchers),” he said.
The Valley Indy emailed White Thursday (May 14) asking whether HUD has approved the Housing Authority’s plan.
Designs
During the Housing Authority’s April 29 meeting they also got a look at revised site plans for the redevelopment from Stephen Tise, a Massachusetts architect.
Tise’s plans call for a drastic reimagining of the site, with townhouse-style buildings taking the place of the barracks-like brick complex.
The addition of 6 more units to his original design calling for 48 apartments didn’t mean he had to make major changes, he said.
“It doesn’t really have a huge impact on the plan. The concept is very much the same,” Tise said.
Click the play button on the video below to see Tise talk to the Housing Authority. Article continues afterward.
A PDF showing Tise’s plans is embedded at the bottom of this story.
Not Enough?
Not everyone is thrilled with the Housing Authority’s redevelopment plans.
Shelley White is the litigation director at the New Haven Legal Assistance Association. She represented Malika Mosley, the former resident of the Riverside Apartments who filed a complaint with HUD saying the city had broken its promise to allow people who lived at the apartment complex move back.
White’s keeping an eye on the authority on behalf of the residents.
In an email, White said the Housing Authority’s plans “do not follow the letter or the spirit of the 2014 Conciliation Agreement” the city signed with Mosley to settle a housing complaint.
As part of that agreement, the city and Housing Authority agreed to put at least 48 affordable housing units on its land just south of High Street, not the entire property.
She said she complained to HUD last October because the Housing Authority’s plans called for only 22 units south of High Street.
She said six more units there still won’t bring the total anywhere close to what was specifically promised for that part of the parcel.
“Even if all six of the proposed new units were to be placed south of High Street, that would still be less than the 48 units that HUD required AHA to develop when it approved the demolition package in 2012 and the number AHA agreed to develop in its 2014 Conciliation Agreement,” White said.
HUD will make the final call, White said. She hasn’t touched base with them in several months.
She also pointed out the total number of units — 54 — is far below the 165 units that were previously there.
“Riverside Apartments was (and the remaining 60 units still are) Ansonia’s only affordable housing for families,” White said. “The replacement of these 165 units with 54 units does not remotely address Ansonia’s need for affordable housing for families with children or the fair housing implications of demolishing Riverside apartments.”
She said the existence of 20 affordable housing vouchers elsewhere in the city doesn’t do much to alleviate the problem.
“The proposal to attach 20 vouchers to existing residential units in Ansonia may produce some additional replacement units, but only if Ansonia property owners actually respond the planned Request for Proposal for these vouchers,” she said. “It is unconscionable that AHA continues to set aside a significant part of the Olson Drive property awaiting a proposal from the City for a proposed public safety and/or other community facility.”
