Malloy, HUD Secretary Tour Norwalk's Washington Village; Discuss Plans to Rebuild Complex

Governor Dannel Malloy and U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan joined Mayor Richard Moccia, U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, Rep. Jim Himes, State Sen. Bob Duff and others Monday afternoon for a tour of Norwalk’s Washington Village housing project following efforts to repair damage to the complex as a result of Hurricane Sandy. The tour also gave the politicians the opportunity to express their support of plans to raze the state’s oldest public housing complex and replace it with mixed-income housing.

Following a brisk walk through the South Norwalk complex, which has 136 units and is located between Water, Raymond, Day and Concord Streets, the group congregated inside of the Washington Village Community Center to view plans for the proposed complex, which will be overseen by developer Trinity Financial. The city is hoping to receive millions in federal funding from HUD’s Choice Neighborhoods program.

According to senior project manager Eva Erlich, the developer plans to build 273 units—136 of them will be replacement homes for current residents and the remaining will an equal mix of workforce and market-rate housing. Because Washington Village is located on a floodplain, Erlich said that the new units would be built above the floodplain, while a parking garage would be built underneath the units. Malloy stressed that during severe weather, residents would be able to park their cars at the parking garages located nearby on Water Street and then walk back to their units.

"This [project] is a combination of the right thing to do for housing on the mixed income basis and helping us deal with what will be, I think, a reoccurring problem with respect to the flooding of this housing if we don’t do something about it,” Malloy said. “And this is why we thought this would be a good one for [Donovan] to see and understand what we are trying to do on a systemic basis with our local partners in Connecticut in addressing some of the problems that I know that [Donovan] works so hard on the behalf of the president... [He] accepted his assignment to not only coordinate Hurricane Sandy relief, but to also understand the thought process that has to go into making our communities more resilient.”

When asked to respond to criticism from some city residents that state and federal funding should not be used to rebuild housing on a floodplain, Malloy said that it would be very difficult for coastal communities like Norwalk to not build on floodplains and that the focus should instead be on “how to build smart on a floodplain.”

Norwalk Common Council Member Anna Duleep told Patch that she’s surprised that plans to build the units of the complex above the floodplain are being considered “innovative.” She said that residents could be faced with higher car insurance rates because of the positioning of the complex’s parking garage and that they might face additional charges if they are forced to park in neighboring garages. She added that there is also plenty of city-owned space available in Norwalk to build the complex a few blocks away, but outside of the floodplain zone.