Housing Director Responds To Candidate Proposal For Riverside Park, High Rises

The executive director of the has responded to a by independent mayoral candidate Lori Hopkins-Cavanagh to demolish the high-rise public housing complex on State Pier Road and turn over the land to the , allowing for expansion without the purchase of a portion of .

In a letter sent to Rear Admiral Sandra Stosz, superintendent of the Coast Guard Academy, Sue Shontell questioned Hopkins-Cavanagh's motives and criticized the plan as unfeasible. Hopkins-Cavanagh had earlier outlined the plan in a letter sent to Stosz. The text of Shontell's letter is as follows:

Admiral Stosz, I have obtained a copy of a letter sent to you with regard to the Riverside Park and Thames River Complexes. I am very disappointed that the first impression to a new Commanding Officer is that we have transient tenants and wretched complexes. Ms. Cavanagh and I met as she said, what she failed to mention is that her statements may have been true 2 years ago under different management, they are not true today.

Ms. Cavanagh was briefed during our meeting that the apartments sit on federal property; they are not hers to plan or dispose of in any way. The Housing Authority is quasigovernmental and does not answer
to the city with regard to state and federal property. Additionally my duty is to provide for decent, safe and sanitary housing for those in need. We have done that by improving our federal inspection scores
dramatically, i.e. security measures, reduction in crime and health and safety issues. I have applied for the HUD Choice Neighborhood Grant which would provide funding not only for redeveloped public
housing but redesigning the neighborhood as well. This included the UCONN study on viability and connecting the USCGA/Riverside Park area to the adjoining neighborhood. I take exception to Ms.
Cavanagh referring to this area as your community, we are all a part of the community and it is in our best interest to unite not divide the area anymore than it has been. NLHA has a working relationship with
CONN College and has hosted USCGA cadet volunteers in the past years to provide community outreach and service. Ms. Cavanagh has chosen to ignore all of the above.

The NLHA would like to be part of the community and has met with [academy alumnus Ed] DeMuzzio, I agree from working with him that the best solution would be for the USCGA to have class rooms closer to the academy
campus and for the City to retain part of the park, which would benefit everyone including our residents. I explained to Ms. Cavanagh that NLHA pays a Payment In Lieu Of Taxes to the city, since she is
concerned about the amount of rental property in the city. Unfortunately it appears, she is not concerned about the residents of the city that live in them.

I am a New London native and a Navy Veteran, who understands that some of the people we help are Veterans and the working poor. I take my position to help those in need no less seriously than I took the
oath to defend our country; it means everyone, in every community. There is no political or monetary gain for the NLHA, I am not sure of Ms. Cavanagh’s motivation. The one thing Ms. Cavanagh did get right
is she is a real estate developer, and that, may be the bottom line in her interest in our federal land and the adjacent area she would like to “sell you on”.

Hopkins-Cavanagh issued this response to the letter:

Ms. Shontell’s vision of a revitalized East New London is a ‘neighborhood’ of subsidized, rental  housing with an insignificant sliver of a park left over after the Coast Guard acquisition of Riverside.  It is the wrong vision for East New London and will lead to further decline, higher taxes, increased crime and poverty.

At this time, we have the opportunity to correct a major public policy mistake that Ms. Shontell and HUD agrees, can and must be torn down because warehousing the poor is undesirable. I used the term wretched because sugar coating the truth, is not my style. 

Unlike Ms. Shontell, my vision is to preserve and revitalize an affordable, historic neighborhood of single and multi-family homes and encourage home ownership.  Those who understand the value of a neighborhood understand that we must save the only open space in all of East New London - our priceless waterfront park.  We need to reconnect this already destabilized neighborhood back to downtown and provide a much better location for the residents of the high rises to move.

Unfortunately, Ms. Shontell supports ‘selling out’ all the residents of East New London by supporting the sale of Riverside Park,  the most important and essential asset to the revitalization of the Hodges Square neighborhood.

I profit nothing from this idea and take offense to the suggestion that I care little for the poor, especially from Ms. Shontell who actually does profit from this issue and enjoys job security at the expense of all New Londoners. The fact is, the amount of crime and law suits resulting from this housing actually hurts the poor and everyone else in the City, but puts food on Ms. Shontell’s table.  There are certainly many good and law abiding residents in subsidized housing, but they are most often the victims of the crime and social issues created by it. 

New London is over 63% non-owner occupied housing and this overwhelming rental population is destroying our City. We desperately need to stabilize and improve our multi-family housing stock and place homeowners with renters into these homes.  We need to create an environment that is favorable for all New Londoners.  Enough is enough, Ms. Shontell.  You are not a selfless volunteer and you do have many political and monetary motivations with HUD. I have none.  I work with poor and low income clients every day, including homeowners who are caught in this unprecedented real estate depression and losing everything, including their jobs. Most of the time, I do not get paid. I have no job security. I am not a career politician. I am not politically motivated, I am fed up.

To say I do not care about the residents of subsidized housing, is a cheap shot with no bases in fact.  I have a client who is a single mom.  She was a first time homebuyer who I helped to purchase a home. She is an honest woman who works her buns off to support her family, only to struggle with the crime and drugs overflowing onto the streets of New London from the enormous number of non-owner occupied apartments, including the Thames River complex.  Unfortunately, this caring mother’s worst nightmare came true on the corner of Crystal Ave and State Pier Rd, where a man was gunned down.  New London deserves better. 

It would be great if the Coast Guard would tear down the walls and ‘buy into’ the opportunity to help create jobs and job training, anchor this neighborhood and improve a major gateway into our city to revitalize Downtown and East New London.  I hope that I can ‘sell them’ on this idea for the benefit of the Academy and all New Londoners, especially the poor.