Government

Affordable Housing: New Canaan Housing Authority Purchases ‘Avalon’ Complex for $75 Million

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The New Canaan Housing Authority last week closed on the approximately $75 million acquisition of a 104-unit apartment complex on Lakeview Avenue. What locals have long known as the “Avalon” property, a 9.1-acre parcel whose closest neighbors include Lakeview Cemetery, Mill Pond and Canaan Parish, will be known in the future as “Riverwood at New Canaan,” according to Housing Authority Chair Scott Hobbs. The acquisition of 106 Lakeview Ave. is expected to help the town achieve relief in the future from a widely discussed state law that allows developers to skirt local planning decisions in municipalities such as New Canaan, where less than 10% of all housing stock is deemed “affordable” under the state’s definition. According to Hobbs, the “vast majority of the units will remain market based and will be managed by Greystar who is a premier property manager.”

“As units turn over, we will be converting 21 of the units to 80% Area Median Income units which will essentially become ‘workforce housing,’ ” Hobbs told NewCanaanite.com in an email.

Around Town

‘We Feel Really Good’: Officials Cut Ribbon on Rebuilt ‘Canaan Parish’ Housing Complex [PHOTOS]

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Officials on Tuesday held a ceremony to mark the opening of the rebuilt housing complex at Route 123 and Lakeview Avenue, part of a larger project that also will see a new structure on the site. Residents of the 60 units at the rebuilt complex started moving into the new building Monday, following issuance of a temporary Certificate of Occupancy, according to New Canaan Housing Authority Chair Scott Hobbs. “We feel really good about the outcome,” Hobbs said Tuesday prior to a formal ribbon-cutting at the new building. Despite COVID- and budget-related holdups, “we are relatively on schedule from where we started,” Hobbs said. “We are extremely happy about the finished product and believe that we have created an exceptional structure for our client/tenant occupants,” he said.

Affordable Housing

Habitat CFC: Back to the Future

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Habitat for Humanity of Coastal Fairfield County’s 2020 Annual Benefit

Go back to the future with us! Dress in fancy 50’s, electric 80’s, or fun futuristic! Whichever era you choose, don’t forget your dancing shoes! Hop in the DeLorean! We’re throwing it back to pay it forward!

Canaan Parish

Housing Authority: With Federal Loan, Canaan Parish Redevelopment Back on Track

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A widely anticipated redevelopment project along Route 123 is back on track after its architects found an alternative to state funding. Working on the Canaan Parish rebuilding project could commence as early as next summer with a federal loan, in addition to smaller grants, according to Scott Hobbs, chairman of the New Canaan Housing Authority. The volunteer agency is partnering with New Canaan Neighborhoods Inc. to rebuild Canaan Parish, a 60-unit Section 8 housing complex at New Norwalk Road and Lakeview Avenue, in a single five-story structure and to construct a new, 40-unit structure of the same height. Both buildings would count toward the state’s affordable housing requirement. 

With a Federal Housing Administration loan—rather than one from the state that’s no longer offered—plans can move forward with the project, Hobbs said when asked about its status. “This complex will be very interesting in that the buildings will be big, but we were also able to maximize the green space on the property and gain the efficiencies of going ‘up’ versus going ‘out,’ ” Hobbs told NewCanaanite.com.

Government

With Change at State Level, Officials Now ‘Scrambling’ To Figure Out Funding for Planned Redevelopment of Canaan Parish

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Officials said Tuesday that they’re “scrambling” in the wake of a change from the state to figure out just how to finance a widely anticipated rebuilding project on the corner of Route 123 and Lakeview Avenue. Plans call for rebuilding Canaan Parish, a 60-unit Section 8 housing complex, in a single five-story structure and construction of a new, 40-unit structure of the same height that would count toward the state’s affordable housing requirement. 

Yet the project “is a little bit slowed down because right now the state has no idea as to whether or not there is actually any funding available for affordable housing,” New Canaan Housing Authority Chairman Scott Hobbs told members of the Board of Selectmen at their regular meeting. “We are also in the process of scrambling add finding out alternatives to how we can go ahead without the state funding, and there are some out there,” he said at the meeting, held in Town Hall. “We would rather follow this course and hopefully get our grant. But at the same time we started to lose faith that they are actually going to be able to come through with what we need them to do.”

Approved by the Planning & Zoning Commission last summer following weeks of discussion about early-stage renderings of the proposed new buildings, the project is a joint effort of the Housing Authority and New Canaan Neighborhoods, which owns the buildings.