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Minerva Place Condominiums: Economically Green

Community Housing Innovations (CHI), along with White Plains Mayor Joseph Delfino, hosted the groundbreaking for the city’s latest affordable housing development - 14 units called Minerva Place Condominiums. Community Housing Innovations, Inc., a White Plains based non profit organization founded in 1991, is the developer.

Minerva Place Condominiums will be the most energy efficient residence in White Plains, featuring the city’s first geothermal heating and cooling system. It is the first low-rise new construction project in Westchester County to meet all of the requirements of the New York energy smart multi-family performance program guidelines. During the groundbreaking drilling began on the first of eight wells for geothermal power system also known as a ground source heat pump. Each well is 350 feet deep.

“With the Mayor’s support, we set out to show that affordable housing could be built with the option of energy efficiency,” said Alexander Roberts, Executive Director of Community Housing Innovations. “With heating oil approaching $5 a gallon, energy efficiency is no longer an option.”

In addition to geothermal heat pumps that use the constant temperature of the earth to heat and cool the building, Minerva Place Condominiums features energy-efficient construction techniques, insulation, plumbing and lighting upgrades that are projected to save homebuyers about 30% on energy costs, compared to a typical new development.

The 14 units consist of 11 two-bedroom and 3 one-bedroom apartments with hardwood floors, Corian and granite countertops in the kitchen, and cultured stone countertops in the bathrooms. The project architect is Warshauer Mellusi Warshauer Architects, P.C. The modular builder is Deluxe Building Systems, Inc. The lender is TD Bank, N.A.

All of the units will be affordable to families with incomes between 80% and 100% of Westchester County’s median income, which is between $73,000 and $91,000 for a family of three. The one-bedroom units are priced from $225,000, and the two-bedroom units are priced from $265,000. However, for families who qualify, Community Housing Innovations may provide up to $30,000 in down payment assistance from the New York State Housing Trust Fund.

White Plains will contribute donated land and about $75,000 per unit in subsidy from its Affordable Housing Fund. The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) will provide about $55,000 to subsidize the energy-saving improvements.

Unlike most affordable developments, which are limited to families earning under 80% of the Area Median Income, Minerva Place Condominiums will appeal to families with two wage earners. Typically these families are disqualified from affordable housing opportunities.

“The Minerva Place Condominiums appeal to families entering the home buyers market,” said Mayor Delfino. “In these difficult economic times, I am proud to say White Plains has options to elevate families into home ownership. The $265,000 condos will fill a critical workforce housing need.

Frank Zisa, CHI’s Director of Development who is overseeing the project, said “It is a testament to the dedication of the city, our lender and construction professionals that we were able to move forward with a workforce housing project when it is needed most, especially in an environment of escalating construction costs and tighter lending.”

The condominiums will be ready for occupancy by early Spring 2009.

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COUNTY’S HISTORICAL PHOTOS TO BECOME MORE ACCESSIBLE

Dept. of Information Technology’s Archives Unit Receives $30,621 Grant

 Over 3,000 photographs of Playland Park were taken during the period of its early development and recreational use, 1927 -1941. Who has not seen and enjoyed the memorable images of depression-era families careening down the Dragon Coaster or frolicking along the Promenade!

With $30,621 in grant funds from the NYS Archives’ Local Government Records Management Improvement Fund, these historical images, as well as over 1,000 others from the relatively unknown, but equally important, John Gass Collection will be better preserved, identified and enjoyed. As a contract photographer for the county, Gass used his lens from the mid-1930s to the late 1960s to produce lyrical landscape photography that beautifully documents the world of mid-twentieth century suburbia. Now, both collections will be much easier to search and use.

A unit within the Dept. of Information Technology, the Archives has protected the Playland and Gass collections for decades in its environmentally controlled and secure vaults. But, researchers interested in viewing the photographs and selecting them for publication or video production had to physically visit the Archives to compare and contrast copies of them. Very often this resulted in handling the valuable prints and negatives themselves, contributing to their degradation

The Archives & Records Center is now scanning the photographs and the state grant will pay for archival cataloging specialists to index the photographs for retrieval using specialized software. The resulting database will include all the cataloging metadata associated with the scanned images, making them very searchable once placed online.

Center Director Patty Dohrenwend added: “Not all of the collection will be placed online at www.westchesterarchives.com , but the index certainly will be. Plus, our reference room staff will have all these images at their fingertips and will be better able to assist our patrons in locating exactly what they need. We hope this particular project will be a pilot for improving overall public access to our collections.”

This grant was one of 330 awarded for the 2008-09 cycle of t he the Local Government Records Management Improvement Fund (LGRMIF); 540 applications were received. The New York State Archives administers the program, which effectively redistributes dollars collected at the local level as part of the County Clerk filing fees. The LGRMIF supports records management and archives-related projects in local governments of all types and sizes throughout New York. In addition to the competitive grants program, the LGRMIF also supports disaster recovery grants. This particular award is #12 for Westchester County’s records program.