Bassett St. Co-Op Laundry Plan Axed

NHVs experiments with housing co-ops have a track record of failure. Why would this be any different? And I can understand EconDev helping a business get started by helping them get grants and apply for loans, but this is an outright public subsidy of a private business; with implications of future support. Why is the city using taxpayer dollars to subsidize this business?

Before the usual wags bring these subjects up…
Yale’s tax exemption; I don’t like it and the onus is upon the State Legislature to pay for it.
Property tax phase ins for housing developers; they served their purpose for about a decade and should have ended when the private sector desire was solidified…about when Toni Harp entered office.

Told You So Notes:

1. This was always a D.A. idea – I said so three years ago and it bears repeating.

2. Just how many times is this city and its elites going to go crazy chasing an idea with zero background in the subject matter, ZERO thought process, zero planning, zero business plan, zero anything? Q House. Great Escape Teen Center. Ninth Square. These F-ups have cost taxpayers millions of dollars. And nobody is held accountable for any of it. And the city keeps repeating it.

3. This should be the end of the laundry business. Nobody in the city knows anything about running one, what building is required, what permits are required – how to even do the work.

4. Stop with the pie in the sky – find a sucker to buy this pig in a poke and try to get our money out of it.

Not a bright idea in the first place. Imagine if a white mayor had proposed a laundry in a predominantly black neighborhood. While this is the social side of this proposal, how would a co-op laundry actually work in practice?  What were Toni and Jason thinking? The whole matter Escapes me. The problem with many politicians is that few have planning and management skills or the courage to keep hustlers and crooks from pilfering the public chest. Elicker is the most promising so far. America and the world suffers from a scarcity of intelligent and honest leaders. And many are simply “mean old lions” like Putin, Trump, and most from the Middle East and Eastern Europe.Add our own senators and representatives from largely red states and we have a recipe for the end of days. Most are men and not just white men. See dictators of color throughout the world for evidence. We could use a few Mandelas and Barbara Jordans in our nation and world. Joe Biden is trying but the verdict is still out on Kamela.

Notes is correct:
Ref: the teen center after spending BIG bucks. To Bethel Church for rent that was never occupied.
What city planners including LCI, city economic Development, Engineering and the infamous, recalcitrant BOA,  would approve, purchase, sell a faux fuc##d up project to the community before a though built out – evluation of cost? Answer: Only the city of New Haven before or after a political campaign!

Noteworthy makes some great points.
Personally, I would love to see worker coops, like Mondragon in the Basque region that has branches in 31 countries and 80,000 employees.
Setting up a workers’ coop is a worthy goal, but it requires specific expertise.
Sometimes a vision isn’t enough.
I’m sure Prof. Rick Wolff could act as a resource, but perhaps this isn’t the right project or the right time.

And another one goes on the very, very,  long growing list of what were our city “leaders” thinking ???

When will the free money and tax breaks for these zany ideas that only benefit for profit companies end ??

The City keeps dumping millions into a hole with every thought and venture into the unknown.

Anyone remember the $20,000 parking study they needed for Howe street years ago to “determine”
if there was a parking problem.

Hmm no spots, no parking, no problem, there pay me 20k.

If you believe as I do that the BOA could use an individual with project management experience I would love to have individuals support in the upcoming election. I have been leading the development of Nonprofit ( same principles a municipality operates under ) accounting software for the past 9 years with great success.

For more information click my name link above!

If this is a building owned by the city, why not consider moving NH BOE into this building and stop paying money for 54 Meadow, there’s plenty of parking and accessible to get to. Just a thought?

So the city bought a building, that it can’t turn into a laundry facility. What about a farmer’s market food hall cooperative? Locally grown, raised, harvested and crafted items. Each local farm, crafter, artisan or chef would rent a booth or shop monthly, seasonally or for the year depending on the size they needed and the time period they would need it for. There would be regular staff for cleaning and maintaining common spaces and daily building operations. CT and New England grown and raised produce stands, fresh meats butcher shops, seafood, shellfish, freshwater fish booths, locally made jams, jellies, pickles and preserves, local honey, maple syrup, a bread bakery, a pastry bakery, dairy shop, ice cream booth, deli items, herbs and spices for cooking booth, a floral booth, an imported goods specialty shop, a locally made bath, body and beauty goods booth, refrigerated or frozen prepared meals to go, salad bar shop, food court styled small kitchen food and beverage booths, coffee shop, tea shop, a holistic herbalist naturopath shop, etc. With an indoor/outdoor eating area that faces the Farmington Canal trail with roll up glass garage doors for good weather with tables and chairs and tent canopies for shade.  A small covered stage for local musicians to play. Hire staff and vendors with a preference for local people and small startup businesses, with especially a hiring preference for people returning to the workforce, and the unemployed and underemployed.
A organization like this would help eliminate the area food desert, help local farmers and the fishing industry, and help people start a new small business, and help people get back on their feet, and gain new business skills and work skills. The organization could host seminars on managing small business finances, budgeting, running and starting a small business for people looking to start up in the small food and crafts industry. The booths should be cheaper than the food trucks fees to rent.

Actually HEATHERC’s suggestion gave me a thought. My understanding is that the economics of a continuously run farmers market is very tough (otherwise we would have already seen CitySeed pull that off.) However I could see the potential in a temporarily city sponsored food truck incubator space. Portland Oregon has a number of these “pods” and they’re very popular and a way that small businesses can get started with low startup costs. The city could put a couple of year time limit on their support and then either kill it or spin it off to a non-profit manager.

That being said, if there is limited floor to floor height then the problem of renovation costs remains a problem.

And has any of that $1.37 million in federal Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) money been spent on the project to date? Is that now down the tubes, given that the city is looking elsewhere to construct the laundry?

No, Samuel replied. That money has not yet been spent, and it’s tied specifically to the worker-owned laundry project. So the city can and will spend it only when the project moves further ahead.

Follow-up question: HOW MUCH did the city spend, I mean squander, to determine the building couldn’t be used as a laundry cleaning facility?

At the July ward committee meeting, Newhallville Community Management Team Chair Kim Harris called for the city to set up a new committee that includes Newhallvillcommunity leaders to help determine what the future of the Bassett Street building should be. Several e Harris Tucker School students presented Mayor Elicker with a petition to that effect. The mayor said he’d happily agree to setting up such a committee and working closely with neighbors on future plans for the site.

Newhallvill community leaders?Are you kidding.Like Dr.Claudia Anderson said.Blacks live in neighborhoods.Not a Community.

The political philosophy of black nationalism means that the black man should control the politics and the politicians in his own community; no more.
Malcolm X

The planning process for what comes next here, Harris said, must be “equitable.”

The only process for what comes next here for Newhallvill is this.

The Gift of Gab “The Gentrification Song”

From the city 20/21 approved budget:
Section 3-101, pg 345, on-line.
Department LCI.

Here you will see LCI’s Goal for 188 Bassett street. There were no funds allocated in this budget year for Bassett Street coming from the general, Capital or Special fund budgets.

Question:So just where is the $1.37M coming from and in what budget year was it approved?

FY 2020-2021 GOALS /INITIATIVES:
 Create new homeownership units in a strategic approach to development through new construction on
City owned vacant properties for working families. In FY 2020-21, the following projects will move from
Predevelopment to Construction
1. Thompson/Winchester Homeownership Project: Commence construction on the City-owned
properties that will be redeveloped for homeownership units in the Newhallville neighborhood.
2. 596-598 George Project: Commence phased rehabilitation to preserve an historic building for
homeownership with rental units.
3. 177 Winthrop Avenue – City of New Haven (Owner/Developer) gut rehabilitation into 2
family (2nd/3rd Floor Owner units with 1st Floor Rental; Design Phase
4. 455 Howard Avenue – Hill South Management Team partnership – new construction 2 family
homeownership structure; 2nd/3rd floor combo unit. Design Phase
5. Ashmun/Canal: City owned parcel LCI will negotiate agreement with selected developer, RJ
Development, for mixed use mixed income development with rental and possible
homeownership and communicate to Board of Alders for approval.
6. Union Square Redevelopment: Partnership with New Haven Housing Authority and
Northland Development Corporation to provide affordable and market rate housing on former
site of Church Street South.
7. 188 Bassett Street: for economic development wealth building initiative build out.
8. Antellian Manor: New construction of 31 units affordable units.
Section III – Agency Narratives/Performance Indicators 3-101 Section III – Agency Narratives/Performance Indicators.

New Haven political and departmental leadership have a serious deficit of common sense, wisdom, thoughtfulness, experience and basic accounting and business management skills. There seems to be a willful intention to sell an idea, collect the accolades and damn the consequences – saying simply, “oops.” The “professionals” who signed off on and supported this foolishness should be fired – the politicos should be run out of town on a rail. Now we have another failed project, another piece of property off the tax rolls for years – and only the good Lord knows how much staff time and money was spent actually studying this idea, doing site visits, analysis, engineering studies etc. to determine what we knew all along. Hard costs include the $900K purchase price – likely borrowed – so add interest to the soft cost list noted above. It’s just hard to fathom the ignorance associated with this latest mistake. Throw a tent over City Hall. It’s a circus.

I find myself agreeing with Noteworthy on this one. The basic question that we should ask about the use of land and buildings in our city is how can we increase taxable properties that will also benefit our citizens, especially the poor and middle class? Previous administrations have given away public monies to entice investors only to have them leave with no return on our investment. We have been pimped by corporate and local hustlers. For as long as I can remember. If Elicker can fend these predators off he will have done something no Mayor has done in this city or maybe any city.
The loss of our industrial base and various monopolies severely restricts the working class. And, unless we can restore some industry without continuing to destroy the planet, things will get worse. We should close loopholes where they exist for nonprofits and disallow the broad tax benefits for religious institutions. Cars, robes and other personal properties, that are currently tax exempt for the clergy , should not be so. We should neither restrict nor support the establishment of any religion.
I am sure I will not get an amen on these comments.

Move the school board. Better parking, greater access. 54 Meadow is inaccessible for many.