On former farmland, a rural CT town may get its first affordable housing
With 20 modest apartments offering one to three bedrooms, the planned Mallory View complex will be similar to typical affordable housing buildings around Connecticut except for its site: A bucolic field in a remote, rural town known mostly for forests.
Mallory View is on track to become the first affordable housing project in Barkhamsted, a community of just 3,600 on the eastern edge of the Litchfield Hills. And consultant David Berto said it’s sorely needed.
“There are people with very limited incomes who need to and want to live in this area but can’t afford it,” Berto said Tuesday at a ceremony to mark a federal infusion of $1.6 million to get Mallory View under way.
“They are going to be for different levels of AMI (area median income), the highest level will be 80 percent of AMI, we’ve got some at 50 and some at 25. So people from a range of incomes can afford to live here,” Berto said.
About 10 residents and community leaders are spearheading the project as the nonprofit Barkhamsted Housing Trust, with a mission of creating housing that’s available to older residents downsizing from family homes and young individuals and families with low- or moderate-wage jobs nearby.
Among the trust’s board members is former First Selectman Don Stein, who said Tuesday that architectural drawings are almost ready to go out to bid. The cost of building the driveway and preparing the 6 acres of former farmland along Old Hartford Road for construction will be covered by the $1.6 million that U.S. Rep. John Larson and the rest of the state’s Congressional delegation secured as a base.
“Our goal is to go to bid in the next month or so, then have contractors selected. The grant of $1.6 million will be enough to get the infrastructure going and get us going in the right direction. Then we can look for other grants and loans. We owe all this to Congressman Larson,” Stein said.
Larson told the small group of project supporters that they and the Barkhamsted Land Trust members deserve the credit.
“Not many people I think would be sitting in Hartford or in D.C. and worrying about affordable housing in Barkhamsted, Connecticut, let’s be truthful,” he said. “But you do because you know the need that exists here, what that will mean for people especially with escalating costs and what it takes to live someplace nowadays.
The roughly 6-acre site is part of the former Mallory Brook Farm; another 90-plus acres is rolling hills and wetlands with no development plan, Stein said.
Christina Lavieri, president of the housing trust, predicted that Mallory View will be popular precisely because of its rural location.
“We’re going to have a beautiful place here, it’s a beautiful setting and people are going to like living here,” she said.
Although the site is surrounded by mostly open fields, woods and rolling hills, Route 44 is only a few blocks away with access to jobs and shopping, according to the trust.
“It is close to the Mallory Brook Plaza, the Ledgebrook Plaza in Winsted, Route 8, and the new medical center being built in Winsted on Route 44 near the community college,” the trust wrote in a 2019 posting on the municipal website. “It is also easily served by the Northwest Transit District for those who can no longer drive.”
Even leaving a buffer for delays, the 2019 posting was too optimistic about the construction schedule.
“Based on the work to be done, the effort required to raise sufficient funding for construction, and the uncertainty of state grants or loans, it is likely that the project will take at least one to two years before construction can begin,” it said. “This length of time is of concern as there are many senior citizens in town anxious for housing like this, as they do not want to move out of Barkhamsted when they are no longer able to live in the homes they currently occupy.”
Berto is working with the trust to secure loans that will be repaid from future rents. He said that model has worked in other communities, and that even very rural and isolated towns have a need for affordable housing. Although Mallory View won’t be age restricted, most of its units will be one-level and all will be accessible.
“The intention is obviously seniors because we have a lot of seniors who are house poor,” Stein said. “They live in a house too big for them to take care of, they have no assets other the house. And it’s for the working young who start a job, don’t have enough money to buy a house but want to work in one of the local businesses. It could be a divorced parent with kids. It’s for all demographics who need help to have good housing.”
