Hartford Land Bank program to teach city residents to fix up vacant, blighted homes and connect them to low-interest loans
By Rebecca Lurye
Arunan Arulampalam, director of the Hartford Land Bank, stands in front of 78 Martin St. in Hartford, to announce a new training program for city residents interested in developing vacant and blighted properties. Standing with Arulampalam (from left) was Calvin Richardson of the Hartford Community Loan Fund, Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin, and City Council members Marilyn Rossetti (not pictured) and Thomas "TJ" Clarke II. (Rebecca Lurye)
HARTFORD — A new training program will teach 15 to 20 Hartford residents how to develop vacant and blighted homes and help them finance such projects, which often carry high costs but bring a wealth of benefits to the community.
The Hartford Developers Cohort, which aims to enroll primarily people of color, is being run by the Hartford Land bank, a relatively new nonprofit organization that aims to acquire and restore empty properties that have fallen into disrepair.
The city of Hartford owns dozens of vacant, blighted properties — both residential and commercial — and transferred its first batch of single- and multifamily homes to the land bank, which is fixing up some of the properties and choosing local developers to restore others.
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The entity launched in 2020 after four years of development. The first of its kind in Connecticut, it's seeded with $5 million in state funding to address the scourge of blighted, abandoned homes and commercial buildings throughout the city.
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But in order to take over more city properties, the land bank needs to find more local construction and project managers to work on them.
Arunan Arulampalam, a former deputy commissioner with the state who has directed the land bank since July, said he hopes the new training program will encourage residents with different expertise to team up on future land bank projects.
The nonprofit Hartford Community Loan Fund has also pledged to provide $1 million in low-interest loans to the trainees to purchase homes from the land bank.
That addresses the biggest challenge residents say they face when they try to plan real estate development projects — financing.
"You have to have money to move on," says Delores Dunn, a Hartford contractor who owns her own business, Deloreses Masonry Services. "There's money out there, but it's hard to access."
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Jennifer Orr, who does a variety of real estate work with her family, also said she needs funding to get projects going.
"It's always a challenge," she said. "Always a challenge."
Dunn and Orr, who both live in the North End, attended the land bank and Hartford Community Loan Fund's press conference Tuesday announcing the new training program. The event took place in their neighborhood, in front of 78 Martin St., one of the seven vacant properties the city transferred to the land bank in January.
The white, wood-frame colonial, boarded up for the past five years, has been an eyesore and potential health hazard on its block. But the land bank sees opportunity in the process of returning it and other properties to good condition: the efforts generate work for residents and local companies, decent homes to rent or buy, tax revenue for the city, and new points of pride in working-class and impoverished neighborhoods.
"We believe the residents the city of Hartford can rebuild this city from the inside, brick by brick, building by building," Arulampalam said. "And that's why we're here today, to build equity in the people of Hartford, not just in bricks and mortar and in floorboards and in granite countertops but in the people of our city."
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Hartford residents aged 18 years or older can apply to the Hartford Developers Cohort online at hartfordlandbank.org. The deadline to apply is Nov. 21.
The two-week program, which will take place from Dec. 4-11, is free and will provide child care to participants who have children.
It will cover how to build a budget, identify and use different sources of funding, order materials, track costs, work with city government, build a strategy and a team and form a limited liability corporation.
Participants will also visit land bank properties that are under construction, like 78 Martin St.
The one-family home built around 1900 is in poor condition, though it's retained some of its original details, like arched windows on the second floor and transom lites and corbels above the front door.
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The land bank hopes a homeowner will eventually live in the renovated property. In the meantime, the construction site may serve as a classroom.
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The land bank has already sold two properties, 61 Charlotte St. and 128 Edgewood St., to minority general contractors who are using their own financing to fix up the multifamily homes. Two others, 471 Garden St. and 103 Earle St., were bought by contractors who will add the apartments to their rental inventories in Hartford.
The land bank has started looking for a developer-buyer for another property in its portfolio, a "perfect six," Italianate six-family home at 196 Homestead Avenue.
Its seventh property, a tiny home at 59 Magnolia St., had to be demolished after an engineer fell through the floor up to his knees.
Rebecca Lurye can be reached at rlurye@courant.com.