The development team looking to re-build the Innes Housing Development into a mixed-income community has made some major changes this summer – inserting a central parking garage and implementing a single phase of construction that will cut two years off the build-out.
The Chelsea Housing Authority (CHA) and Corcoran Development released the new plans this week ahead of a meeting with residents of the Innes on Tuesday night. The redevelopment plan includes 330 units of housing, with the existing 96 units of public housing re-developed alongside the market-rate housing and 40 workforce development units as well.
The major change in the project is completing it within a single phase, staring in the fall of 2020 and cutting off two years of construction due to eliminating phase 2.
CHA Director Al Ewing said as a result of community input, they decided it would be better for residents and neighbors to attack the project in just one phase. Previously, the project contained two phases and lasted two years longer.
“As we were meeting with people on this project, one issue coming up over and over was the cost of housing, but what the possibility might be for Phase 2,” he said. “So, we thought it might be best to do this in one phase. It would be better for residents and for the project overall.”
Said Joe Corcoran, president and CEO of Joseph J. Corcoran Company, “We’re proud to be part of a team that continues moving forward to ensure affordable housing for residents. We believe the redeveloped Innes Apartments will be a tremendous asset to the community and look forward to continued work with the Chelsea Housing Authority, Innes residents and our City, State partners through the summer.”
The single-phase approach would move the construction timeline to approximately 18-24 months, rather than four-plus years that was expected.
One of the keys to that is being able to put existing residents into temporary housing while construction takes place. With two phases, residents were going to be shifted in smaller numbers – with some staying at Innes in existing units and those impacted by construction moving to other developments in the city temporarily. Now, however, all of the existing residents will have to move at once.
Ewing said they are confident they can relocate residents, and they will be particularly conscientious of those residents with children in the school system.
“We are committed to keeping people in Chelsea to the degree we can,” he said. “We will continue to give priority to families that have children in the school system. We are working with the schools and we want to have minimal impact on our residents…Based on the number of vacancies we have and the people living in the development…we should be able to accommodate most, if not all of the residents.”
All residents will maintain their rights as public housing residents during relocation, with many being relocated to existing public housing units and some to private units – regardless of where they are placed, relocated Innes Residents will continue to enjoy all of their rights as public housing residents before, during and after relocation. Corcoran has employed Housing Opportunities Unlimited – an organization that specializes in providing direct assistance to residents impacted by renovation and unit rehabilitation projects in affordable and mixed income housing communities – to support the redevelopment team and Innes residents throughout the process.
“We continue to work diligently to ensure residents of Innes are fully informed of all updates on this exciting redevelopment project,” said Melissa Booth, co-president of the Innes Residents’ Association. “We couldn’t be more pleased with the improved construction timeline that allows for faster rehousing for all our families.”
Another new component of the project is a central parking garage facility that will be located on the eastern side of the development near the MassPort Garage.
“We felt that would work better, and the added bonus of that is we hope we can increase the numbers of on-site parking spots,” said Ewing. “We’ve been trying to be responsive to the concerns of the neighbors, the City Council and the City as a whole.”
Another new piece of the plan is that the development team has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the City to confirm commitments made to restrict on-street resident parking privileges for the new, market-rate tenants of the development.
The Innes Redevelopment team is committed to continued on-site office hours throughout the summer so that residents may informally drop by and ask further questions. The project team will continue its tradition of an annual backpack giveaway for residents in late August and also hold two resident engagement events, including a youth engagement party and an employment fair. A comprehensive Resident Relocation Plan will also be developed and introduced as part of the continued outreach to Innes residents.
“This newest plan is really the result of all the concerns we’ve heard from City officials, our residents and people in the neighborhood,” said Ewing. “We continue to address concerns and it makes it a better project.”