Courtesy of John Lockhart

Over a month after its approval for construction by the City Plan Commission, the plan for a new apartment complex in the Hill neighborhood of New Haven continues to spark controversy, with community members questioning the affordability of the development and arguing that their input was not considered. 

Located at 354 Davenport Ave., the 194-unit luxury apartment building will displace seven families with a six-month notice. However, this direct displacement is only the first aspect that alarms residents about the development. 

“The community is not against the project at all, but [the news of the plan] came to the community at the last minute,” said Howard Boyd, chair of the Hill North Community Management Team. “If they don’t let us know then we don’t have time to fight. It would have been nice for the community to have a little more detail. If we could just fill that gap of communication, things would be better.”

One week before the approval of the development on Oct. 19, Boyd and the rest of the Hill North Community Management Team drafted a letter to the City Plan Commission voicing their concerns. The letter was sent in response to two meetings the community members had with the developers of the apartment complex, California-based development company Catalina Buffalo Holdings.

In the letter, the Hill North Management Team reiterated the concerns they had presented to John Lockhart, director of investments and operations at Catalina Buffalo Holdings, during the meetings. Additionally, they made direct reference to the developer’s statement that they would “fight if [the community] sought to delay” the development. 

This effort, however, was ultimately fruitless. The press conference with Lockhart and the City Plan Commission that the community had requested was denied, and the demands they protested for were deemed by the city and the developers to be out of anyone’s control. With construction of the apartments set to begin next spring, community members have continued to express their hesitation about the project. 

The Hill: “Affordable for who?” ask residents.

As per the zoning laws of New Haven, Catalina Buffalo Holdings will fix 5 percent of the units in 354 Davenport Ave. at rents affordable to those making 50 percent of the area median income. With affordability being one of the biggest concerns expressed amongst Hill residents, Catalina Buffalo Holdings continues to face pressure to increase the amount of affordable housing in the development. 

The community worries that the addition of luxury apartments will drive up rent prices in the neighborhood, making it infeasible for community members to pay their rent and displacing them, according to longtime Hill resident Kimberly Hart. 

“The development is going to make rent go up because the other landlords are going to start saying ‘Well if they’re making this much, so can I,’” Hart said. “There is a housing shortage in New Haven already. So if one person won’t rent at the prices they are listing the units at, there’s another person standing behind them in line.”

Hart said that residents worry that if this pattern continues, they will all be pushed out of their homes and possibly pushed out of the city. With this, she reminded her neighbors that “they need to remember that they could be next on the chopping block.”

Boyd added that community members want to “make sure that [they’ll] be able to get New Haveners into those units [at 354 Davenport Ave.] at affordable prices.” 

In response, Lockhart said that the developers are aware of these concerns, but have been unsuccessful so far in finding a way to resolve them.

“We’ve been telling folks that the financial feasibility of this project is past our safety margins in many ways,” said Lockhart. “It doesn’t feel good having people wanting you to do more and wanting to help them but not being in the position to do so.”

However, Hill residents insist that more affordable housing must be made available to current residents amid the current housing shortage in New Haven, Boyd said. The Hill has almost double the amount of people per square mile than the city average, tightening the pre-existing shortage.

Some residents argue that even the 50 percent AMI units may not be affordable for all Hill community members given their incomes — as Boyd put it, “affordability depends on the person.”

To this, New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker, who Hart argued had shown a lack of initiative to advocate for affordability in the Hill, responded that the city cannot legally demand an increase in affordable units within a private development. 

Additionally, he clarified that New Haven is a state leader when it comes to policies protecting affordable housing, with clear zoning laws requiring developers to reserve a certain proportion of affordable units in new projects. This proportion depends on the neighborhood the development would be located in. 

“The City Plan Commission could not have rejected the proposal for the development based on the amount of affordable units it has,” said Elicker. “They have a narrow purview, and it does not include this. That rejection would not have been legal, and the developer could have sued and would have won if that was the case.”

Elicker clarified the importance of attracting new developments to grow the city, which is in part hindered by requiring too high a number of affordable units, as this is very costly for the developer. Though Elicker admits the city “has more work to do,” he said that they must prioritize both city growth and sustaining current residents’ livelihoods. 

Displacement in the Hill

In response to concerns about the displacement of the families currently living on the property, Lockhart emphasized Catalina Buffalo Holdings’ commitment to ensuring that the families find safe, affordable and suitable housing. 

“We will be giving the tenants a six-month notice and will be helping them find new residences, we will be assisting them with deposit money and moving costs and really making sure to disrupt their lives as least as possible,” said Lockhart. “We’re very conscious of that. We intend to make sure that everybody is comfortably shifted over and that nobody is rushed out the door.”

Two out of the five Hill residents the News spoke to said that they have been directly affected by displacement caused by similar developments. They also worry about the indirect displacement that will occur if housing prices rise.

“The home that I grew up in was taken by developers,” said Pamela Monk Kelley, co-chair of the Hill Management Team and longtime Hill resident. “This is something that is across the nation, not just in New Haven, but it is very evident here.”

Hart said that her cousin, who was born and raised in the Hill, recently had to move with her children out of her apartment due to rising rents. 

“She found housing in Waterbury but she doesn’t have a car,” Hart said. “She has to get up at five in the morning, take the bus to New Haven, go to her clients’ houses … she doesn’t get back to Waterbury until around eight or nine o’clock at night. All because it’s too expensive to live in New Haven now. It’s unacceptable.”

Gentrification: A more general, city-wide issue

“This is gentrification,” said Hart when asked her general thoughts on the development. 

This was a general consensus among the five Hill residents the News spoke to. Residents have insisted the city of New Haven, the City Plan Commission and Catalina Buffalo Holdings address this issue.

When asked about this, however, Lockhart responded that greater patterns across the city and country must be acknowledged, and that this development is not the first nor the last of its kind.

“On the matter of gentrification, I don’t quite know what to say about that because that’s kind of a larger phenomenon that happens due to a wide variety of reasons so I wouldn’t know how to combat it,” he responded. “So long as people continue to want to live in New Haven and be close to downtown, the current effect of gentrification is going to keep happening. I think that our project got put at the forefront of some issues that have been bubbling up for a while now.”

Executive Director of the City Plan Commission Laura Brown affirmed her commitment to “working with residents, leadership, and the City Plan Commission to address the significant affordable housing concerns in the city,” which have been linked by residents to gentrification issues in neighborhoods like the Hill.

“It’s mostly about money, and having the ability to invest in these parts of the city,” urbanism professor at the Yale School of Architecture Elihu Rubin, said about gentrification on the Hill. “This issue is complicated. These developments could displace people and change the social composition of neighborhoods, but it also means the neighborhood — and the city more generally — is desirable and that there’s economic activity.”

Elicker insisted that New Haven is working hard to “push [the developers] to engage with the community,” praising Boyd’s efforts “to let the developers and the tenants know that they will be a part of the community.” Elicker emphasized the need to make sure that the Hill remains affordable to current residents. 

“This particular development isn’t replacing many units, as most gentrifying developments do,” said Elicker. “In many ways, this helps keep down the rent, because having many more units available will reduce the overall demand, reducing the price of units on aggregate.”

The development at 354 Davenport Ave. is set to begin between April and June of 2023.