Description

I have seen the flood of complaints here and elsewhere about the growing number of what WERE single family homes (or even two family) being bought by out of area "investors" and then turned into as many rental units as possible... often without permits.

The idea is to take a home designed for one family, buy it on the cheap and slice it into as many apartments as possible. Not only was the house not designed for this use, the driveway can't hold the cars of multiple residents so vehicles of renters spills onto the streets making it impossible to plow, more and more children from these apartments that used to contain one family flood into the schools, etc.

The owners? They often don't live in Ansonia or near the properties. They just cash the rent checks. Who cares what they did to the neighborhood.

While I can not confirm that permits were not pulled, HERE is a recent example. This is an older photo from Google but since it was taken the front of the house has been "modified".

NOW, there is a metal spiral staircase on the right side of the front porch that brings you to a new entrance on the third floor where the attic window was. Sure enough, the owner found a way to rent out the attic as yet another unit... and modified the front of the house however possible to create an entryway to this space.

EXACTLY what Ansonia doesn't need!

Feel free to tell me permits were pulled, there is nothing wrong with this, etc. but when you see a metal spiral staircase and doorway on a third floor slapped onto a house... you begin to see why Ansonia has become too densely populated.

If the owner followed the rules, I applaud them... but the City should have NEVER allowed this. It's the root of our problems!