Meriden City Center Initiative

Public Involvement Process
Commercial Center Market Assessment
Environmental Impact Analysis
Harbor Brook Realignment
Preliminary Design of Transportation Improvements
Conceptual Land Use
Design Guidelines
Fiscal and Economic Impact Assessment
Appendix A: Property Acquisition Plan
Appendix B: Residential Relocation Strategy

	Scattered Site Relocation

	Mixed Development

	Mixed Ownership

	Summary

	Public Housing Recommendations

	Privately Owned Housing

	Acquisition Process

	Private Housing Relocation Recommendations
Appendix C: Preliminary Opinion of Cost Summary

Scattered Site Relocation

Scattered site relocation where the governing authority, usually the local housing authority, secures a large number of small land parcels, usually to accommodate from 2 to 4 units of housing. These may be existing structures or new structures built on vacant lots. The units are located throughout the community with the exception of neighborhoods labeled “impacted areas,” or locations that have an excess of existing public housing or are severely blighted.

The Father Panik demolition and relocation in Bridgeport, Connecticut is the paramount example of this strategy. Eleven hundred families were displaced and relocated through a combination of portable vouchers and scattered site housing. The effort began in 1999 and is continuing, as a scattered site strategy requires long lead times.

The advantages of this strategy are:

There is likely to be greater availability of land, assuming that smaller parcels are in greater supply than large ones.
There would be reduced impact upon any particular neighborhood as compared to replacement of large projects (40-60 units or more) in a single site or location.
The plan can be phased in a manageable manner over a number of years, depending upon the replacement project’s scope and the corresponding ability to phase demolition of the existing project.
If properly designed, the scattered site units would provide a higher quality of family life due to the seamless nature of the units blending with the existing neighborhood “fabric” as opposed to large public housing projects which are highly visible.

The disadvantages of a scattered site strategy are:

Given the long lead time to produce the designated units, the existing housing project requires a gradual phase out of tenants or a temporary relocation while families await the new units. If the demolition of the existing project is paramount and cannot be phased as new units become available, this double relocation activity can be expensive to the housing authority and disruptive to tenants.

The property management of large numbers of smaller units presents issues of higher costs for the housing authority, and under these constraints maintenance and repairs may suffer. If external maintenance is below par, neighborhood opposition will quickly surface.