Saying that it can’t find qualified tenants, one of the biggest new privately owned student apartment complexes at the University of Connecticut is looking to steeply cut its inventory of reduced-rent units while reclassifying a handful as Section 8.
Landmark Properties told Manfield officials last week that it has leased all 340 market-rate apartments at The Standard at Four Corners, but has struggled for nearly 10 months to line up tenants for 52 that are income-restricted.
Apartments set aside as “affordably priced” to meet state income limits have rented poorly, and the supply of so-called workforce housing has fared even worse, Landmark said in a Jan. 26 zoning application.
With 44 apartments sitting vacant, Landmark wants to pay Mansfield $1.7 million in lieu of maintaining its mandatory supply of reduced-rent units.
The deal would let it maintain just 18 units at long-term reduced-rate rents rather than 52. In addition, the company is offering to further discount the rents at 10 of them and loosen the rental restrictions so they’d appeal to a wider audience.
When Landmark got town permission in 2022 to build The Standard, the company was mandated to set aside 52 apartments at reduced rents. There were to be 35 designated as “affordable” housing and rented only to individuals or families earning below 80% of the area’s median income. The other 17 were to be workforce housing, available to tenants making less than 120% of the area median.
Landmark said that since April, it has tried to market the 52 reduced-rate units through email blasts, direct mail and social media campaigns, open houses, referral incentives, online and newspaper advertising, and promotion through numerous UConn offices.
“Despite these efforts, Landmark has leased eight of the affordable units and none of the workforce units,” the company wrote.
Landmark last week filed a request to modify its original zoning permit so that it could offer far fewer affordable units, but would price that at even lower rates. It recently reduced rents for the affordably priced apartments; they now run from $1,400 for a studio to $2,400 for a three-bedroom unit.
“Landmark seeks this modification to expand the affordable housing opportunities in the development, as the current restrictions limit the eligible population,” it wrote.
Landmark’s proposal is to keep unchanged the status of the eight “affordable” apartments that are currently rented. It would take another 10 and change the restriction to just 50% of area median income, qualifying them as low-income Section 8 housing.
The remaining 17 “affordable” units and all 17 “workforce” units would be converted to market rate like the rest of the complex.
“Social service representatives and other contacts have stated that even the affordable units are not, in practical terms, affordable enough for the residents looking for below market rate units, as they often have incomes below what is necessary to support the rent,” the company wrote in its application.
“Landmark’s proposal would broaden the pool of potential residents to a larger demographic and create a unit type that would not otherwise exist under Mansfield’s inclusionary housing regulation,” it wrote. “If permitted, these units would provide a housing option difficult to find in the market, particularly at the lower income levels.”
Town Planner Jennifer Kaufman told commissioners at a meeting Monday night that Landmark’s plan would change the occupancy standards for the affordable units. The rules of the federal low-income housing tax credit program currently apply, while the revision proposes using the less restrictive Section 8 criteria.
Kaufman advised the commission to hold a hearing, saying “I think you’ll want to hear from the public with regards to this.”
Commissioner Joshua Walters said he’d want to see “Whatever efforts they undertook to market these units. Are they really doing 100% of what they need to be doing to be sure these units are filled?”
Commissioner Ken Rawn said he, too, wants to know more about that.
“I’d like to know not just what the (marketing) plan is, but to what degree they’ve implemented the plan,” he said.
Commissioners set a hearing for mid-March16.