ANSONIA – City officials held a ribbon-cutting ceremony on May 31 to celebrate the opening of six federally subsidized apartments at 1 Holbrook Place.
The apartments are part of the city and the Ansonia Housing Authority’s obligation to replace apartments lost when the city and the housing authority tore down the Riverside Apartments, an outdated federally-subsidized complex on Olson Drive that fell into disrepair.
The house at 1 Holbrook Place was built in 1898 and was in bad shape when the housing authority purchased it in July 2021. Click here for the property’s history.
Extensive renovations were done to make the apartment house liveable.
It has six, three-bedroom units, with fully furnished kitchens, featuring stainless steel appliances. Each unit is about 1,000-square feet.
Ansonia construction company, Giaimo Associates, served as general contractor responsible for the transformation.
Ansonia Housing Authority Executive Director Jared Heon and Mayor David Cassetti led a tour through the brand new units, each featuring wide plank, dark wood-like flooring, freshly painted white walls and kitchens with bright white cabinets, stainless steel refrigerators and stoves.
“This project is a fine example of the cooperation we have on all levels to create beautiful, modern apartments for our residents,” Cassetti said. “This further confirms our commitment to our low to moderate income residents to create scattered site housing that is affordable and attractive.”
Davina Salter, a mom of three, currently lives in New Haven, but is one of the six new families who’ll be moving into One Holbrook Place this weekend.
“I can’t wait to move in here, this is beautiful, they did a good job,” Salter said. “I love the fact that there’s yard space. I don’t have that where I’m at now. It’s a nice and secluded area. It’s quiet and it looks safe and that’s what I wanted for my kids.”
Another new tenant on hand for the ceremony was Lavernea Giddiens, who now lives in Bridgeport but is planning to move into her new apartment in Ansonia very soon.
“Right now I live upstairs from a doctor’s office so it’s always busy,” she said. “When I found out (I was approved for here) I just broke down and started crying. My son, he’s going to high school, and needs a different type of environment. So, I’m excited and ready for a change.”
Background
The new housing celebrated in Ansonia this month is a feather in the cap for the city, which, under former Mayor James Della Volpe and continued under Mayor Cassetti, had fought to get rid of the Riverside Apartments.
The Riverside Apartments on Olson Drive were built in 1962. It had 11, three-story buildings with 165 apartments.
As the decades progressed, the complex became a hot spot for crime – specifically drugs and the violence that comes with it. The city and the housing authority were able to turn the place around, but by the 2000s the buildings were old and in constant need of repair.
In addition, the times had changed, with high-density government assisted rentals built like Riverside – where the institutional-like building design and layout made crimes easier to commit – falling out of favor.
Instead, federally-subsidized housing units are spread throughout communities, instead of clustered in one spot.
Click here for a 2011 Valley Indy story that delved into the Riverside Apartments’ history.
Convincing federal and state housing officials to let go of Olson Drive was anything but easy.
Ansonia Corporation Counsel John Marini was eventually able to work out a deal that saw the City of Ansonia purchase the Olson Drive property from the Ansonia Housing Authority for $510,000.
The administration also convinced the federal department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to remove a deed restriction that said Olson Drive could only be used for subsidized housing. The city and HUD negotiated a “scattered site” solution – that is, putting 48 replacement units throughout Ansonia.
Jennifer Gottlieb, director of public housing for HUD’s Hartford office, was happy to see the outcome of more than a decade of work.
“It was some years back that we heard from the City of Ansonia on what kind of affordable housing they wanted to see in the city,” Gottlieb said. “We put our heads together in Hartford with the AHA and the city leadership and decided the project-based voucher program was a great solution for the City of Ansonia to be able to check a number of boxes, which was to create quality, affordable housing that people wanted to live in that enhanced, rather than detracted, from the character of the City of Ansonia,” she said. “We have preserved the small town character of Ansonia, as well as turned around a blighted property.”
Heon said the housing authority purchased the building on Holbrook from local attorney Gregory Stamos for $380,000 in July 2021.
Heon said the Holbrook Place building was the first property acquired for the “scattered site” replacement program.
The housing authority also purchased a property at 177-179-181 N. Main St., which did not require extensive renovations like the one on Holbrook. Six families live there.
Heon said the Ansonia Housing Authority is financing the rehab, which totaled about $1 million, through Ion Bank. Rent collection, where a portion is subsidized by HUD, will be used to make repayments on the bank loan, Heon said.