New London – Neighbors of the former Edgerton School arrived in droves at a City Council meeting Monday to voice their displeasure with a proposal by the new owner to build a 124-unit affordable housing complex.

More than a dozen people spent an hour arguing that such a plan would drive down property values, create traffic and parking headaches, increase the crime rate and hurt the overall quality of life.

“I haven’t met a single person that is in favor of the project,” said Katherine Goulart. “People really seem to have a problem concentrating that many people in one area.”

Goulart handed out fliers to residents in the vicinity of the 120 Cedar Grove Ave. property concerning Monday’s meeting.

Massachusetts-based Affordable Housing and Services Collaborative purchased the property last month. The group, along with Peabody Properties, was hired by the New London Housing Authority to find new homes for the 379 tenants at the federally-subsidized Thames River Apartments, known as the Crystal Avenue high-rises.

The housing authority agreed to find homes or rehab the high-rise apartment complex as part of an agreement to settle a class-action lawsuit in which tenants claimed were unsanitary and unsafe conditions on Crystal Avenue.

The council on Monday was to take up a request by the new owners to remove property deed restrictions first put in place when the city agreed to sell the land to developer Peter Levine in 2007. The deed restrictions prevent housing from being built on the site. 

Representatives from Affordable Housing and Peabody showed up prior to Monday’s meeting and opted to postpone their request. They were not present for the discussion. Attorney Mathew Green, who represents Affordable Housing, said councilors had raised a number of questions that needed to be addressed before they came back.

Councilor Martha Marx said some of the questions concerned the future of the Crystal Avenue property - such as the cost of cleaning up the site before the housing authority transfered the property to the city.

Cedar Grove Avenue resident Daniel McSparran, who was among others to fight Levine’s proposal for development of affordable housing, said “those deed restrictions are there for a reason.”

“You take away the deed restrictions and you take away our protections,” he said.

Resident Sarah Pantalone said she wondered why the housing authority had not sought housing vouchers to disperse tenants into empty apartments.

“I wonder if we can’t do better for them,” Pantalone said. “They’re already in a situation where they’re concentrated.”

Some at Monday’s meeting questioned the type of people coming from Crystal Avenue, with references to drug dealing, trash and noise.

Councilor Anthony Nolan, clearly disturbed by some of the comments, responded by asking speakers not to refer to Crystal Avenue residents as “those people.”

“I know a lot of people that live at Crystal Avenue and the majority of them, if not all of them, are decent people,” Nolan said. “And they’re not all drug dealers. They’re not all criminals. So when you come before council and you talk about being unhappy about something that’s going to be built, talk about what’s going to be built. Not the people.”

g.smith@theday.com