Residents voiced concerns while Mayor Curt Leng was on the campaign trail
By Peter Dewey
Hamden Mayor Curt Leng is planning a new initiative, “Hamden fights blight,” to clean up abandoned and unsightly properties in town.
Leng, who mentioned this idea in a radio interview with the New Haven Independent on Oct. 3, said that he found blight was a common theme among resident concerns while campaigning door-to-door for the Democratic primary this fall.
“Residents talked about quality of life issues and improving the neighborhoods,” Leng said. “That ranged from street paving sidewalks, trees, traffic and blight. It is something that I have been interested in since I was on the council.”
The town has compiled a “hot-list” of seven properties that need immediate attention.
The locations given to the planning and zoning department include: 37 Stevens St., 922 Winchester Ave., 2038 State St., 293 Goodrich St., 891 Dixwell Ave., 635 Wintergreen Ave. and 560 Newhall St.
The old Hamden Middle School, located at 560 Newhall St., is one of the seven blighted properties on the town’s hot list. Mayor Curt Leng is making renovation of the property a priority.
While Leng said that the “hot-list” includes these seven properties, he said there are about 20 to 25 properties in Hamden that he believes will need attention.
“In the zoning world, we’re going to try something called ‘Hamden fights blight,’” Leng said. “It means that we’re going to be a little more aggressive attacking the blight list that we have, that we know about.”
Of the seven properties, Leng said there are five residential, one commercial and one town-owned.
The town-owned property is the old Hamden Middle School, located at 560 Newhall St.
“Leaving the school like that lowers the property value,” Shanelle Rudolph said. “The neighbors are upset.”
The middle school has been abandoned for several years after it was found to be built on top of a former toxic waste dump.
“I can’t remember how long its been (since the middle school has been abandoned) but it has been a very long time,” Mike Ortega, a member of the parks department, said. “I heard the talk of the town was turning the property into elderly housing or low income housing.”
Residents in the area have expressed concern with the fact that the abandoned property doesn’t represent their community well.
“I would like the town to hire people and come clean (the old middle school) up,” Anne Marie Cruz, a Hamden resident, said. “When (graffiti on buildings) happens at Yale, they clean it up the next day, because they don’t want to offend anyone.
“That’s the way we should think. There are very nice people from all walks of life living around here. There’s a lot of diversity and that’s what I think makes it nice.”
Cruz, who lives on Sheffield Street, said that she knows of another house abandoned there after the owners passed away. She said someone still cleans the property, but that it hasn’t been lived in for a while.
Leng was adamant that the crack down on blight will be used for places that are empty household or abandoned properties.
He also said that this will occur after attempts to contact and get the property owner to clean the property are not successful.
Hamden residents are also eager for the town to clean up a property on 922 Winchester Ave. (shown below).
“It looks bad in the area,” said resident Veronica Gram, referring to 922 Winchester Ave., another hot-list property. “If they could fix it or break it down or sell the lot or something. It looks terrible, it’s not good at all.”
According to Leng, one of the properties on the list, located on Goodrich Street, is partially in Hamden and partially in New Haven. It used to be a three-family house, but the town now has new plans if they are able to seize it from the previous owner.
“The one on Goodrich is 40% New Haven, 60% Hamden,” Leng said. “It is being foreclosed by the City of New Haven and (Hamden) is already in the process of doing it on our side as well. Once we get a hold of it and control of the property, we are going to hand it over to the Hamden Economic Development Corporation.”
“When we get control of it we are going to knock it down,” Leng told the New Haven Independent. “This has been an eyesore for a long time. It’s been empty. There was a fire many years ago and I believe it is something that you can’t occupy anyways.”
The Department of Planning and Zoning states on its website that residents with complaints about blight need to fill out a form in order to trigger an inspection.
If a violation is found, the staff will work with the property owner to resolve the problem.
“The goal of ‘Hamden fights blight’ is to be more proactive,” Leng said. “Right now, we receive the complaints. What I would like to see us do is to do two streets per week of proactively going out and inspecting. It’s a really simple concept, but we haven’t done it up until now.”