HARTFORD — Connecticut based affordable housing developer Heritage Housing Inc. announced the purchase of a problem plagued Hartford apartment complex.
For years, tenants at Barbour Gardens apartments complained about unsanitary and sometimes dangerous living conditions. Heritage Housing Inc. President David McCarthy says they plan to change that.
“We are responsible owners. The other properties in our portfolio get extremely high marks from HUD,” McCarthy said.
Heritage Housing Inc. acquired the property for $2.7 million and plans to spend millions more to renovate the place.
“We would completely gut the bathrooms and the kitchens which is where all of the problems were with these apartment. We are looking at changing the heating system out entirely,” McCarthy said.
McCarthy added the company also plans to renovate the outside, improve safety and make it an inviting place to live.
More than half of the units will be section housing thanks to a new contract with HUD.
To avoid situations like Barbour Gardens in the future, Hartford’s city council recently passed changes to the city’s housing code, which would now require names and addresses of all owners and operators in an attempt to avoid anonymous owners to run complexes with little to no supervision.
Mayor Bronin says this includes clearer standards, stronger enforcement authority, proactive inspectors and residential licensing regime and a number of other things that I think give us better tools to hold landlords accountable.