The Best Use for Brackett Park?
Last night Hartford’s City Council voted to allow a developer to purchase 5 acres of city park land. With the purchase of this parcel, currently known as Brackett Park, Toraal Development LLC will change the landscape to include 20 two-family, owner-occupied homes, 20 rental units, and a 3 acre park.
The argument for this type of project is that it creates tax revenue for the City of Hartford and promotes home ownership. The argument against this type of project is the precedent it sets by selling City park land to a private developer for private use. Presumably, once this land is sold and developed, it will never be park land again.
Given my profession, I clearly care about homeownership. The question I have is why can’t we make do with the housing stock that we already have in Hartford and increase our homeownership rate with those existing homes?
Let’s take a quick look at the snapshot of Hartford single and multi-family homes currently for sale…
We currently have over a year’s worth of multi-family inventory on the market. Is it a smart decision to be building more multi-family homes? Shouldn’t we be concerned with the ones that are already for sale and trying to get potential homeowners into those? The percentage of these homes that are bank owned or requiring bank approval for the sale is over 30%. What’s being done to ensure these properties are not falling into disrepair and are still paying their property taxes?
We can also look at the numbers for the project. The proposed project has a $7.8 million budget, of which $4 million is coming from the State. The rest of the funds will come from sales. So with 20 two-family homes for sale, to clear the remaining budget of $3.76 million, each unit will need to be sold for a minimum of $188,000 to break even. Since developers generally like to make a profit, the prices will likely be higher.
There are currently 63 two-family or three-family properties for sale north of Albany Avenue. Both the average and median asking price for the group is less than $160,000. What if the State used its $4 million to reimburse up to $100,000 in repairs and improvements on 40 existing properties? There would definitely be some administrative challenges, and they would need to put in rules about owner occupancy, but this sort of strategy would work to improve the existing housing stock rather than building additional housing in an area where there is not demonstrated demand.
What are peoples thoughts on this subject?
because someone, somewhere, on the city council has a vested interest in this?
what you propose is just too logical and straight forward.
better use would have been to make that park into a parking lot.
I think it’s not just that someone has an interest in this somewhere. There’s something “ok” about “developing” land, but giving people money for repairs is, well, giving money to people. There’s resistance to this on both the government side and the recipient’s side. That’s why these sorts of stimulus/incentives usually need to be sold as “doing something” – e.g. the green/energy improvement credits.
Personally, I think stuff like this is a great idea. I’d quibble with the numbers (50K for 80 homes? even 25K would go a long way to replacing windows and plumbing or redoing floors + kitchen).
My only concern about this is what’s the justification for spending 4 million state dollars on either the new development OR the improvement credits? I’m asking for your opinion, not some objectively true/optimal answer.
Sujal
Sujal- I don’t really have any knowledge as to why the state approved $4 million in state funds for the project. Why wasn’t that $4 million allocated towards schools, another development project, or another town altogether?
I honestly do see this as a poor/short sighted decision regarding the park space and as a bad development decision. I do not see how this will make any money given sales prices for multi families in that area of the City and what the market will bear for prices. And if the developer can’t sell the houses, then I guess they just rent all of the units. The City will still be happy because they’ll get their tax revenue.
Regarding “giving people money,” I am generally opposed to that sort of thing because I lean towards the fiscal conservative side. But given the fact that the state allocated $4 million somewhere in their budget, I thought about would I rather give it to this developer to build something that really isn’t needed, or give it to people that want to buy a home and are interested in living in an existing neighborhood and house in Hartford. Time and again, I would pick giving it to people that want to buy and revitalize existing neighborhoods.
Normally I would not be suggesting the State give the City money to fix houses- we need to be handling that on our own. But if they’re willing to give $4 million, I see smarter ways that it could be used to accomplish the same goals that are touted- “home ownership.”
One final issue I have with this is that I believe if this project was proposed for many of the other parks in the City, it wouldn’t have even been given the time of day. Can you imagine the outrage if a developer asked to buy 5 acres of park land at Elizabeth Park, say on the Asylum Avenue area of the park?
I support the recycling of already existing structures. There are plenty of them in Hartford. No reason to destroy a park.
I like the idea of money for repairs on existing properties. There are many buildings/homes in Hartford that desperately need fixes like window replacements and roofs.
I could’ve worded my last paragraph better, sorry. You touched on what I was meant to ask, which is whether “home ownership” is a worthy justification for government spending.
I think giving people money to fix up existing houses would be an excellent stimulus package, though. Getting something like windows done keeps 2-3 people fully busy for a week, and creates jobs and business for all the people that supply the contractors. Doing a 100 houses with a 10K budget would last a while, be a direct boost to local employment, and would get some houses to be nicer. $1mil, spent well.
Sujal
sigh, “what I meant to ask” – i give up.
I completely agree. Not only would it be better use of funds to renovate existing homes, but even if this developer wants to build these housing units in North Hartford, there is PLENTY of vacant land to use. I don’t see why the City Council feels that they can feel free to sell off our parks. I would be outraged if they sold off Sigourney Square park. Why not spend the $4Million fixing up our parks, which are currently in horrible shape? Why not build 20 two family houses and 20 rental units in the sea of parking lots just north of downtown? I am sure that someone on the Council has a vested interest in this… Sadly, I am not surprised at all.
There are already programs run by entities such as the Connecticut Housing Improvement Fund that provide no/low interest loans for energy efficiency and other improvements. CHIF could have allocated the money with far more certainty of a) improving existing residential structures; b) stimulating the local economy; c) not adding units to inventory; d) adding to the tax base. The vacancy rate in the City of Hartford is over 16 percent – up from 11 percent at the start of the decade — over 8,500 units — according to the new Census American Community Survey estimates. With declining population, employment, and rents and high default rates it is tough to take the stated purposes of the project very seriously.
Hartford has many neighborhoods full of multifamily homes either in apartment buildings or in 2-4 family homes. Hartford, and cities like Hartford, needs to create structures for people to purchase units within these buildings if it hopes to increase the homeownership rate.
by “structures” I mean legal structures and funding programs like a mortgage pool and support for creating and operating condominium associations.