Rebuild’s first phase finished
Officials celebrate redevelopment of Washington Village, state’s oldest public housing complex
NORWALK — The state’s oldest public housing complex is undergoing a multimillion-dollar redevelopment, and Gov. Dannel P. Malloy and other state and local officials were on hand Wednesday to celebrate completion of the first phase of the old Washington Village rebuild.
Renamed “Soundview Landing” — symbolic of its views of the Long Island Sound — the South Norwalk complex sustained flood damage during Superstorm Sandy in 2012. Built in 1941, the site had a history of flooding issues, said Norwalk Housing Authority Executive Director Adam Bovilsky, something that is being remedied with the redevelopment.
Bovilsky was one of the dozens of community members and residents from the Washington Village complex who gathered with the governor at 20 Day St. on Wednesday afternoon for a ribbon-cutting ceremony.
“Housing is fundamental to who we are and how we raise our children,” Malloy said. “We need a broader brush of affordable housing through our state.”
The Norwalk Housing Authority is rebuilding the complex under the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Choice Neighborhoods Program. The goal of the program is to build highquality, mixed-income housing to provide children and families with educational and other services and spur public and private investment.
One of 25 Choice Neighborhood grantees, the Norwalk Housing Authority received a $31 million grant for this project, said Luci Ann Blackburn, Choice Neighborhoods Project coordinator with the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
A new 10-unit apartment building at 13 Day St. and a 70-unit building at 20 Day St. recently reopened as part of the first phase of the project.
Phase two involves building a new 85-unit building on the south side of Raymond Street, between Day and Water streets.
Finally, the Washington Village Transformation Plan calls for razing the existing 136-unit complex and building 273 new apartments in five new buildings in its place.
The project — a mixture of workforce, public-housing and market-rate apartments — will be completed in September 2021, when the Choice Neighborhoods Program funding runs out. Half of the units are public housing, 25 percent are for low-income tax credits and the rest are market rate prices, Bolivsky said.
“This is a benchmark now of what can happen.” Norwalk Mayor Harry Rilling
“This is a benchmark now of what can happen,” Mayor Harry Rilling said. He and other officials said families need adequate housing in order to advance their quality of life.
In order to raze and replace Washington Village, the 136 families originally living there had to find interim housing before relocating into the newly built apartments. Due to difficulties finding places — especially ones that take Section 8 vouchers — a few families are still residing in it.
Lillian Williams, however, has already moved into her new home and is thrilled to be in a “updated” building.
She said she remembers receiving the evacuation notice from the Norwalk Housing Authority, asking her and her family to leave their home after Superstorm Sandy. She said she was lucky her apartment was on the second floor of the complex because she didn’t sustain any damage, like many of the other residents, whose apartments had feet of water in them.
Now she lives at 20 Day St. — across the street from the old Washington Village — and said it’s a better living situation for her and her daughter, who has a disability.
“Look at it, you can tell,” she said, looking out the window toward the Washington Village apartments.