Senior Housing Projects

There has been a lot of information recently about the Senior Housing Project and I thought I would try to highlight some salient points. Four years ago, the project was divided into three phases to accomplish the construction of Senior Housing.

Phase I: The first phase was the construction of the Senior center because it was best solution to bring the infrastructure needed to the proposed housing area and improve chances of a HUD grant. The town received over $1,000,000 in grant funding for the senior center and it was built in 2003 - 2004.

Phase II: The second phase was the contruction of the senior housing apartments. In 2004, the ACCESS Agency of Willimantic (at the time, I was Chairman of the Board)applied for and received a HUD 202 grant for 4.6 million dollars of which apporximately $4 million was for construction. The Access agancy formed a development corporation called Access Senior Housing of Willington (ASHOW) to oversee the construction and management of the apartments. Ground breaking for this is expected it May 2006.

Phase III: This phase was for the development of six 4-unit cottages for moderate and above income limit. The Willington Housing Authority is currently working on this with no time table at this time.

Town Commitments: The town agreed to construct a water system to help with Phase II and III of this project. After the HUD 202 contract was awarded in November 2004, an aggresive schedule was developed for construction of the water system. That was the last anyone saw of the schedule. After emergency Board of Finance meetings in January of 2005 to call a town meeting for funds to develop the necessary wells, contract award and drilling did not begin until 5 months later. During the last year, multiple and vocal requests for schedules, finances and project meetings were denied. We were assured by the First Selectman that everything was okay. In summer of 2005, a meeting was finally called to discuss the status of the projects. It was there that multiple questions were raised about time lines, responsibilites and funding. In January of 2006, after threats of refusing to apply for grants, the First Selectman called another meeting to discuss the project status. It was at this meeting that the Selectmen and the project engineers first saw that there was no measureable progress by the Town since the summer and the project deadline was Febraury 1, 2007. At the point we are at, it will take us fourteen months to complete the project - if everything goes right. We will also need to identify and commit anywhere from $300,00 to $600,000 in additional town funding between now and March 31, 2006. Despite the continued assurances of the First Selectman, this project and the $4 million dollar funding are in jeopardy. We may be able to pull this off but it will take skilled project management to do it. That is where we are today.