TMHA targets 24-unit complex

By Ed Runyan

Demolition of Colt Court apartments is expected to begin in about a year.

WARREN — With a vacancy rate of 25 percent in its Warren properties, the Trumbull Metropolitan Housing Authority is planning to demolish its 24-apartment Colt Court apartment complex on the southwest side.

The demolition, likely to occur in about a year, is in addition to an earlier decision to tear down about two-thirds of the 200-unit Fairview Gardens apartments in southeast Warren, which is expected in the next six months.

Fairview Gardens is on Benton Street, near the Niles Road post office and the Draper Street Apartments, which is not a TMHA-owned property.

Donald Emerson Jr., THMA executive director, said the board most likely will eliminate even more of its Warren housing in the future because of a high vacancy rate at the two Riverview apartment buildings just west of downtown.

The two Riverview apartment buildings, on Tod Avenue and Buckeye Street, consist of 300 apartments for low-income elderly and disabled residents, but 82 of them are vacant.

TMHA has done studies to determine whether the Riverview buildings could be renovated to make some of the apartments larger, but the cost was too high.

“Warren’s population has gone down 20,000 to 25,000 people. We can’t support the number of public-housing units we have,” Emerson said.

Warren’s population hit a high of about 65,000 in the late 1960s but is now below 45,000. TMHA has about the same number of public-housing units as it did when the city was home to 65,000 people, Emerson said.

TMHA, founded in 1934, provides public housing to low-income people.

There is no vacancy problem in any of the TMHA’s properties elsewhere in the county, such as Girard, Hubbard and Niles, Emerson noted.

The Colt Court Apartments were the site of a double homicide Aug. 2, but Emerson said demolishing the complex was part of the TMHA’s “yearly plan” five to six years ago. The homicide isn’t the reason why the complex is slated for demolition, Emerson said.

Crime is a factor TMHA considers in deciding which complexes to keep, and Colt Court has experienced a great deal of vandalism, probably because of its remote location near the edge of town, Emerson said.

TMHA hasn’t decided yet what to do with the land, Emerson said. One possibility is that it will become a “green space.”

The residents who are displaced by the Colt Court demolition will be offered vouchers to find a private home or be allowed to move into the Highland Terrace apartments a short distance east, Emerson said.

runyan@vindy.com