Armstrong Court Renovation Plan Won't Include Senior Housing

Plans to build apartments for senior citizens at the Armstrong Court public housing complex have been scrapped by the Greenwich Housing Authority.

The Housing Authority made the announcement at the Nov. 19 Board of Selectmen’s meeting where the three-member board approved a municipal improvement status for the authority’s proposal to renovate and expand the complex.

The decision to delete the proposed 51 new housing units for seniors comes on the heels of housing authority officials have had with residents of the Booth Court neighborhood. The original plan to construct the senior housing would have included creating access from Booth to the rear portion of the Armstrong Court complex where the apartments would have been built.

Residents questioned the feasibility of creating that access and the traffic it would create, as well as expressing environmental concerns.

The authority is proceeding with its plans to renovate and expand the complex which was built in 1954.

The selectmen approved the municipal improvement status, which will allow the authority to pursue state grants to finance the project that will include converting a dozen one-bedroom apartment into two-bedroom units. The plan also includes building six new buildings each containing three three-bedroom apartments, which housing officials said is more conducive to family living. Those six new units would face Hamilton Avenue in the town’s Chickahominy neighborhoood.

Residents in existing apartments would be relocated to those units to make way for major reconstruction of apartments to create two- and three-bedroom units in the complex that was built in 1954, according to George Yankovich, a housing authority board member.

Yankovich said that all units in the complex will be gutted and outfitted with new electrical, plumbing, heating services, as well as new kitchens and creating new bathrooms in the expanded units. The existing buildings also would get new facades.

In granting the municipal improvement status, the plan will now be submitted for review and approval by the Planning and Zoning Commission.

Yankovich said the authority will need to find a land parcel of at least one acre in order to build a senior apartment complex to meet the increasing need of senior housing in town.

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