BRIDGEPORT REPORT
By Reginald Johnson
BRIDGEPORT --- The Marina Village apartments, which provided public housing for thousands of poor people for nearly 70 years, is being torn down to make way for a far less dense housing complex which will provide both low-income and market rate units.
Park City Communities, which has managed Marina over the years, is partnering with a private firm, JHM of Stamford to build the new complex, called Windward Commons. The new development will offer 1 and 2 bedroom garden-style townhouses, a big change from the 2-story brick row houses of Marina Village.
The first phase will have 54 units, of which just 5 units will be public housing. According to Dave Ghio, director of planning, redevelopment and modernization for Park City Communities, the rest of the units will be market rate and others called "affordable" and "deeply affordable" --- for residents whose incomes are above federal poverty guidelines but who can't afford market rate housing.
When completed, Windward Commons will provide 100 units on the 27-acre Marina site ---- a sharp reduction from the nearly 400 units in the old complex. Though figures have not been finalized, Ghio said between 20 and 40 units would be public housing The total project will reportedly cost $200 million to build.
Ghio said the new complex will offer a better quality of life for residents than Marina Village, which was the kind of high density housing project the federal government is moving away from. "We don't like to warehouse people," he said
"What you'll see being replaced at Marina Village are new, modern, everyday, market-rate looking properties that have a private investment aspect to it, but much less dense" he said.
But one local city council official is blasting the new development and says it offers too little public housing.
"That doesn't sound too good at all ---- only 5 units public housing," said Jorge Cruz, city council member from the South End.
"It's an absolute farce what they're doing," he said. "Deliberately, they're gentrifying the place, really. To me, it's a form of gentrification if you're giving people a little bit of crumb of five apartments for low-income housing, but the vast majority, no, when the whole interest of Marina Village was for public housing," Cruz said.
The councilman also claimed that officials at Park City Communities, formerly called the Bridgeport Housing Authority, misled people at Marina ---- when demolition and relocation of residents was first discussed several years ago ---- by saying that residents there would have first choice on coming back to the new complex.
"How can you promise that, knowing that 95 percent are not going to be able to come back?" Cruz asked.
On the issue of possible gentrification in the neighborhood --- which is close to Seaside Park and the University of Bridgeport --- Ghio didn't deny it was a possibility.
"I'm very familiar with the term gentrification and that can be cross-referenced with evolution of a neighborhood," he said. "Gentrification can be defined as negative and I don't see this as negative. Certainly the intent is not negative or to change the neighborhood for purposes other than the safety, health and well-being of our clients, the residents of our community."
Ghio also said everyone at Marina was relocated into some type of publicly-subsidized housing. Most of them, he believed, got housing through the Section 8 program, where families get a voucher to cover most of the cost of a rent in the private market. The resident usually has to pay about 30 percent of their income for the rent.
"Ultimately, everyone was relocated, and peacefully, I have to say," the housing official said.
Denese Taylor-Moye, a long-time resident of Marina and head of the tenants' association said she thought the process of relocation had gone well. "Some people moved out of state, some went to scattered site housing, some to Section 8, some went back to public housing...nobody was left without a place to go."
Taylor-Moye, who also has a seat on the City Council with Cruz, said residents weren't rushed out of Marina to make way for the new development. "Everybody had choices. It wasn't like, 'We're taking down Marina. You gotta go.' It wasn't one of those things," she said.
The councilwoman feels positive about the new complex. "Windward is going to be a great place coming up, if it's designed to be. It will be the future housing...It will be what's needed for people in housing."
Ghio said there were a host of reasons for tearing down Marina Village --- which dates to the early 1950s.
"There's a financial obsolescence formula used --- look down 10-20 years, what will be the cost to maintain and operate them, there's the drug and crime issues and primarily the end of its useful life," said Ghio.
The demolition project is being done by Standard Demolition, a firm in Bridgeport, Ghio said. The company is a "Section 3" contractor, meaning that they are required to hire low-income residents from the local area, in return for receiving federal funds. The cost of the contract is $2 million.
Cruz said he is concerned about the impact of the development on the neighborhood at the same time another major event is taking place in the South End ---- the dissolution of the University of Bridgeport.
The financially-pressed UB recently reached a tentative agreement with three other universities --- including Sacred Heart --- for taking over parts of the school. Cruz said the deal was worked out with the help of Mayor Joseph P. Ganim, who Cruz said has a teaching position at UB.
Cruz said the agreement should have had some input from the City Council and that was not the case.
"We've got a lot of questions about what's going on," said Cruz.
Cruz said a group of Black and Latino elected officials have been meeting recently to discuss the agreement and possible legal action to stop it.
The councilman said people are concerned about the impact of the new school on the South End and Seaside Park.
"We're not happy with this deal," he said.
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