Housing Authority: CHFA ‘Very Interested’ in Loan for Affordable Housing at Riverwood

A quasi-public affordable housing lender appears to be “very interested” in loaning the New Canaan Housing Authority money as the local agency moves toward converting some units at a newly acquired Lakeview Avenue apartment complex into “affordable,” as per the state’s definition, officials say.

The Housing Authority last month closed on the former ‘Avalon’ complex—renamed Riverwood at New Canaan—for about $75 million. According to Housing Authority Chair Scott Hobbs, the head of the Connecticut Housing Finance Authority or ‘CHFA’ is said to be “very interested in loaning us money at very favorable rates to convert some units.”

“We’ll see what they’re offering because it’s possible we could cut some of our debt service,” Hobbs said during the Housing Authority’s Dec. 4 meeting, held via videoconference. “It’s possible also if they’re doing this 1% type money or something, it may make sense to make some 8-30g qualified units now. But we’ll have to end up seeing what the deal is and see how it works and works with all of our lenders and works with everyone else and all that other fun stuff. But that’s promising, that the state is looking to help.”

Hobbs said he received information about CHFA from a longtime consultant to the Housing Authority.

The comments came during an update regarding Riverwood. The 9.1-acre parcel, which includes 104 housing units, is expected to help New Canaan carry out its affordable housing strategy of chaining together “moratoriums” or four-year blocks of relief from a state law known by its statute number, 8-30g. Under it, in towns where less than 10% of all housing stock qualifies as affordable (New Canaan is at less than 4%), developers who propose projects where a certain percentage of units are set aside to rent at affordable rates may appeal to the state after a local P&Z Commission denies their applications. New Canaan’s last moratorium lapsed in July 2021, under a prior administration. After it did, the town received three 8-30g applications, at Weed and Elm Streets (120 units), Main Street (20 units) and Hill Street (93 units). P&Z denied all of them. The applicant’s appeals currently are before a state Superior Court judge in Hartford. (The town earned a new moratorium this summer, though neither that, nor the acquisition of Avalon, is expected to affect the pending 8-30g appeals.)

According to Hobbs, the Housing Authority is now “in the process of trying to absorb Riverwood.”

“We’d had a little bit of a stumble in that it took too long to close on the project,” he said. “And with the too-long-to-close, we ended up losing a couple of tenants. We lost a manager. So we’re just trying to refill a couple of vacancies. We’re in the process of all the little things that happen when you take something over. So everything from any uniforms or clothing for staff to little Christmas decorations, stationery, signs, all that sort of stuff is going on and we’re just trying to plow through those items. Again, try to get our occupancy back up over 95%. Right now it’s about 90%. We have a couple more coming in and hopefully we can keep some private tenants there.”

Asked whether the Housing Authority has moved yet on converting units in Riverwood to “affordable” under 8-30g, Hobbs said that the process hasn’t started yet.

“We have just over a year to get really plugged in on it,” he said. “The reality is that it’s tricky trying to go ahead and have a ‘split community’ in terms of how you advertise—what you put up on the website, what’s affordable, what’s not affordable—even though they’re the same units. So that’s a slightly tricky process to go out and market that way.”

Referring to the property manager at Riverwood, Hobbs continued: “As Greystar gets set up and we get the other issues taken care of, then we’ll go ahead and move into paying much more attention to getting the affordable housing stuff up.”