ConnCAT Dixwell apartments

Submitted by buried_lede t3_106z704 in newhaven

I don’t know why this nonprofit development of 170+ apartments can only set aside 34 as affordable and (probably barely affordable)

This seems to be a deliberate effort by a Yale affiliated nonprofit to gentrify lower Dixwell for inclusion into the Yale bubble.

There is nothing more dire than the lack of affordable housing in new haven right now

Of the millions in public funds going to this project much of it benefits Yale more than new haven

https://www.nhregister.com/news/article/New-Haven-seeks-grants-remediation-development-17699732.php

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OpelSmith t1_j3jkfkv wrote

I mean, you can build a 174 unit complex that is 100% affordable if you want. I'm happy that there us 174 more units coming onto an almost non existent market and that there are now 34 more subsidized places

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RedditZhangHao t1_j3jq3dc wrote

Reading the OP’s linked New Haven Register article, the plans for the development also include a new grocery store, day care center, etc. More housing with additional services in the lower Dixwell neighborhood appears positive.

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buried_lede OP t1_j3jnlfk wrote

Yeah, that’s the prevailing wisdom, but they could provide more and didn’t .

New haven has added something like a thousand units of market rate housing in the last three years and prices have not come down. So much for granola theories

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johnsonutah t1_j3k41d5 wrote

That just means the city is actually improving and attracting additional demand. That’s a good thing.

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Crafty-Cauliflower-6 t1_j3kbj4s wrote

That's horrible if you rent here. You need to make 80-100 k to not have roommates here. Unless you get assistance.

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johnsonutah t1_j3kd8y6 wrote

Most people who live in a city live with roommates. It’s that way in most cities across the country (or at least, any safe cities with meaningful population and jobs density).

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Crafty-Cauliflower-6 t1_j3kdwez wrote

And that's good because

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johnsonutah t1_j3qnpyt wrote

That’s reality in any remotely desirable city. No amount of designated affordable housing will change that.

New Haven needs to focus on developing mixed use areas and public transit asap. It’s CT’s best shot at having a really solid city

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OpelSmith t1_j3mjn5i wrote

Yeah the rent is crazy here. But less units units are not going to fix that. We have an vacancy rate of 2% in the metro, it's the 2nd or 3rd lowest in the country. There are no tenant rights at a <2% vacancy rate

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buried_lede OP t1_j3ntt1z wrote

Why is this comment being downvoted? Is it a sin to confess it’s hard to pay the rent?

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buried_lede OP t1_j3kzbki wrote

The median income is $24 k / $44k household in new haven. And over 20-percent poverty rate. Those numbers are about five years old, pay is probably higher now but not tons

Edit: more recent numbers. As of 2021, $29 k individual, $48k household, median incomes for New Haven per US Census

(And this comment downvoted too. Lol. Don’t talk, I get it. I’m not supposed to talk about this)

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Crafty-Cauliflower-6 t1_j3lcnch wrote

Average rent in New haven is ????

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buried_lede OP t1_j3lgzb8 wrote

Around $2000

Edit: Another source says it is $1500

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buried_lede OP t1_j3lichi wrote

Why is this being downvoted?

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Crafty-Cauliflower-6 t1_j3m7u5j wrote

After tax rent is what percent of the average salary?

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buried_lede OP t1_j3mtepi wrote

After tax? Maybe say what you are thinking about. New haven is expensive and income is low comparatively, so, it’s a really tough situation. Plus it became expensive really quickly, which makes for sticker shock for residents. The vast majority of new haven residents are renters

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buried_lede OP t1_j3mtt4f wrote

I mean, after tax is an even higher percentage, obviously. It’s unsustainable. I posted the median income for New Haven- you can do the math. It’s dire. When a 1 br is almost 100- percent of gross median income, lol

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OpelSmith t1_j3mjug2 wrote

We've added like 5,000 people since the last census. These people mostly still would have come here with 1,000 less units otherwise. The rent situation could be way worse

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buried_lede OP t1_j3nu7u2 wrote

There is too little housing of every type - there is no arguing there, single families, 2-3 families, apartment complexes. There isn’t a category in the state that isn’t far short of demand.

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buried_lede OP t1_j4s6bqa wrote

I couldn’t find a solid report on number of new units after a quick look ( I’m sure there is one somewhere) but just skimming news articles, 1000 is low, it looks more like 1000 a year

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flytweed t1_j3k710u wrote

This is a long-planned, local, New Havener-focused development which is widely supported by Dixwell’s longtime Black community. We are fortunate to get such a project.

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buried_lede OP t1_j3nsbrx wrote

Others say this is a Yale driven project that the community worked over good and held back until it could get some concessions. I knew that much and this article is the first I’ve read about it since that was ongoing and an update for me. I see the definition of low income has improved for affordable units to 50-percent of median. That’s better than it was

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buried_lede OP t1_j4s3gyu wrote

What do you mean “ New Havener focused?”

It’s quite evidently not. Again, the median income is $29k for individuals, $48k for households. Most of the apartments in this building are affordable to high tech Yale bio/hospital employees and their spouses and others from NY metro, maybe Stamford, Boston metro, who want a break from high rents in those cities.

To say this with a straight face is rather remarkable.

Is there a better way? Maybe yes, maybe no, but if no, let’s not then pretend it’s a yes to make ourselves feel better.

Luxury apartment developments are functioning as a magnet for out of towners, rather than what was first hoped — a damper on rising prices — so, though there is a crazy building boom going on, the occupancy rate remains high, prices are going up, not down, and the NYT is saying New Haven is awesome, hottest thing this year and you should move there or visit.

This is kicking people in the face who are at the median income or below. It’s doing nothing for them, yet, nor, I suspect, is it meant to. No matter how hard city hall tried, the market forces prevailed, and in the lower Dixwell/hospital areas/ edge of Newhallville where Yale wants to expand its bubble, they are prevailing too.

Yale has also found ways to remove some multifamily housing off the tax rolls in past years too. They do pay taxes on a lot of their non academic property but when they can, they have found ways to pull buildings off the rolls that had been on the rolls. (Including by evicting long time tenants who are not Yale affiliated)

Not to be too town/gown, but something has to give. We need real rent control in New Haven. The market and inclusive zoning isn’t going to do it

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igetmoneyyuhuurd t1_j3k8vi9 wrote

Excellent development that will bring new housing and retail to a neighborhood that desperately needs it

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marxianthings t1_j3k3ojf wrote

I agree but we were able to win this so far: https://www.newhavenindependent.org/article/inclusionary_zoning_3

Hopefully we can continue to take the fight to Yale and build on this.

I think YIMBYs are wrong to trust the market to magically fix housing costs when in reality so much development leads to gentrification and displacement but If we are converting useless and ugly strip malls and parking lots into mixed use developments that actually add affordable units then that’s good. We can continue to force rents down through our political work.

Get involved with New Haven Rising and Recovery for All (and cpusa) if you are interested in community organizing.

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buried_lede OP t1_j3nt2u9 wrote

It’s a big experiment. We’ll see how it works out, whether it kills development in those neighborhoods. I hope not but in any case, we’ll learn from it.

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HartfordResident t1_j3oy7o4 wrote

Inclusionary zoning is a tax on developers. In other words, it raises the cost of development. That means fewer units will be built. The result of fewer units is more demand from households for each unit. The result of that is that the cost of housing is much higher than it would be otherwise.

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Clams_casin0 t1_j3we0iy wrote

People who don’t live in these communities love telling people who do what’s best for them

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HartfordResident t1_j3xqo38 wrote

People who own homes (city council persons, mayors, community organizers) love making up policies that pretend to help poor renters, but in reality make the problem a lot worse

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buried_lede OP t1_j4f447x wrote

I've lived there, by the way, just not recently

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buried_lede OP t1_j4f4193 wrote

Well, in New Haven's case, inclusion of lower income units gets you tax breaks, and allows you to build more units and smaller units to make up for it. It also lets you out of minimum parking I think. It gives you some footprint room. We just have to wait and see if it works for New Haven, because not all of the city is zoned this way and if you want to get out of it, you can pay the city $160K or something like that, and if it "works" whether it will utlimately house people more affordably than the city has in the past

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HartfordResident t1_j4q8q6v wrote

Those are good points. But if the city truly wanted housing to be more affordable, it would just give tax breaks, allow smaller units, allow more building height/density, allow larger footprints, and/or get rid of parking minimums for all developments automatically. Housing is being kept expensive because of these rules and zoning laws.

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buried_lede OP t1_j4qolkg wrote

Without requiring affordable units, lifting those rules makes housing more expensive, except when excess inventory drives the price down.

For instance, some landlords are renting rooms in apartments now instead of apartments, allowing them to get far more for the apartment than if they rented the apartment as a whole. All of those size and footprint breaks would do the same—-allow gouging in the absence of excess inventory or requirement for affordable units.

Many of New haven’s landlords are private equity funds. They’ll mug your grandmother if you aren’t looking

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HartfordResident t1_j4qp5fk wrote

No, those are all rules that are well known to increase affordability. In some cases the unit that the rule applies to might be more expensive - for example, a taller building might have more expensive units because the apartments at the top have a better view and rent for more - but that's certainly not the usual scenario. Overall, the effect is that more apartments get built, which means there are more homes to go around. Every time a new apartment gets built (or a large apartment gets split into two apartments), it opens up an apartment for someone else.

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buried_lede OP t1_j4t4h09 wrote

In the case where they are renting out each room in, say, a three bedroom apt, the landlord is increasing the revenue from the apartment.

That’s a formula being used often now for newly developed, student focused apartment complexes.

If you’re running a private equity fund, those rules will bring the landlord’s costs down, not necessarily the rent. They have to mandate affordable units or the city won’t get them, unless and until inventory outstrips demand.

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Esbey t1_j3m8cjy wrote

This is a local black run non profit that has the full support of the local black neighborhood. It receives minimal support from Yale. Adding 34 affordable units increases housing affordability. If you know of a way to fund more units without using revenue from market rate housing, then you should build those units.

In general, there is a huge body of careful empirical evidence that increasing housing supply decreases rents relative to the counterfactual world where housing is not built. Most displacement gentrification takes place in cities where demand for housing is increasing (because of new jobs, etc) and where new housing supply is restricted. Wealthier new residents then end up moving into the existing historic housing stock, pushing out the poor. This is to the great benefit of incumbent property owners, like Mandy here in NH.

Look at Cambridge MA where old three-flats built to house working families now house tech workers who pay millions per unit. This is the future that left NIMBYs want for New Haven. Huge profits for existing property owners and the poor pushed out. But the newly rich neighborhoods will be quaint and historic, how nice.

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buried_lede OP t1_j3mvazp wrote

There are a couple people on the sub invoking some monolithic “Black community” solidly behind this but when it was first proposed there was a great deal of conflict and activism attempting to modify as best they could what are perceived to be the negative impacts not only of this project but the overlay zone. ConnCAT has a very deep relationship with Yale, and the Black community, so, it’s not one or the other for them. Yale has plans for that area. They work closely with Yale.

Catching up on the progress I noticed this article and read up.

I’m very familiar with the position of more new units, market rate or otherwise, are a positive. I don’t think it’s enough to solve New Haven’s affordability problem. Unfortunately I worry it will barely do more than maintain the status quo.

Edit: Isn’t ConnCAT a nonprofit with a for profit arm? There are nonprofit housing developers in new haven that have built 100-percent sliding scale buildings charging 30-percent of income. Arlow, for example.

Someone wants to fancify that block of Dixwell, attracting high incomes. Arlowin Westville fancified by ensuring that the renaissance went to everyone without excluding low income

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SnowhiteMidnight t1_j3x3obu wrote

Nonprofit/for profit mix has become common, otherwise nonprofits find it difficult to survive or manage to accomplish much.

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AbuJimTommy t1_j3ml6rs wrote

There’s 2 main reasons to only apportion a certain % of units as “affordable” while Maintaining a majority as market rate.

First, ideologically HUD and many advocates have pushed the idea of deconcentrating poverty. The old way was to build large tracts of subsidized housing in undesirable sections of urban areas. You can see this type of development all over (parts of) town. Most of that can’t be undone, and it can be very difficult to put together a funding stack for something that isn’t 95-100% subsidized, affordable. The newer idea is that the “poor” will have better outcomes if they are mixed in all together with other economically diverse families rather than segregated. This is some of the idea behind rental vouchers as well, but as we know voucher holders struggle to break out of economically depressed sections of town too. Having a small to medium % of units in a new construction can be a really good way to further deconcentration, depending on the particulars.

Second is money. Even with millions of government dollars, it is really, really expensive to build this type of housing, a cost that is compounded often by the strings attached to that government money. Government money that usually only makes up a minority share of actual costs. Eventually a building has to generate enough income to both pay staff and service the inevitable debt on the property as well. Additionally, “non-profit” doesn’t actually mean the organization doesn’t make a profit, it just means there’s a socially beneficial bent and the profits aren’t distributed to any kind of shareholder, they stay with the organization to further the mission.

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buried_lede OP t1_j3n0jwk wrote

Nonprofit actually is nonprofit, but what you mean is it needs to maintain adequate operating funds to sustain its projects and itself. If I’m not mistaken ConnCAT has a for profit arm, which some nonprofits have. Not certain of that though.

Another way to mitigate segregating the poor is to dedicate half the units to lower income artists and/ or entrepreneurs, rather than market rate. It has the same outcome - it expands the cultural gravity and vibrancy of a neighborhood as well as, no, better than monied renters. This is a well known affect of the arts in neighborhoods.

Just an idea I am putting out there for consideration.

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HartfordResident t1_j3ng7ie wrote

Do you realize how bad the housing shortage is in Southern CT? New Haven (and Fairfield County) need to be building as much as they can regardless of what the price is.

Also the price is set by the amount of government subsidy so if you want the new units to be more affordable you need to lobby the Lamont administration and Congress to make more subsidies available. Unfortunately Lamont is pretty conservative and Congress is even moreso.

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buried_lede OP t1_j3npe8i wrote

I agree, I just don’t see why a nonprofit is acting like private equity, Ok? If that’s not clear.

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28to3 t1_j3mfaf9 wrote

Dixwell is a warzone with shots fired almost every day in the area. Glad to see developments like this.

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Aware_Train1666 t1_j3mkept wrote

resources were restricted because leaders fail to network outside the normal circles....

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Aware_Train1666 t1_j3kvlhi wrote

what will happen if folks go into overdrive and begin to work 40-70 hrs. per week? Find a way to share rental units to lower some expenses.

Take some earned money to hire a nutritionist, therapist, life or business coach......

Learn and win public and private contracts to hire some folks....

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catsmash t1_j3md86h wrote

what?

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Aware_Train1666 t1_j3mh8h9 wrote

thinking about outcomes so I figured I'll try to approach the conversation from a different perspective.....

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brewski t1_j3mjifn wrote

I'm not sure I understand your perspective. You may be missing a word or two in your post.

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