New London ― Construction crews on Wednesday towed eight modular home sections three miles from their staging area at Ocean Beach Park to a set of foundations on Friendship Street, where they will soon house 12 low-income residents.

Once complete, the prefabricated sections will become a pair of two-family homes. Each halved duplex unit will have three bedrooms, said Cathy Zall, director of the Homeless Hospitality Center, the group that owns the residences.

“This has been years in the planning, and it’s fabulous to see this happening now,” Zall said Tuesday.

But city officials have questioned the interior configuration and described use of the two duplexes saying they essentially would constitute a pair of new boarding houses, a use prohibited by zoning regulations.

Three years ago the center celebrated the opening of a separate shared-space residence at 13 Friendship St., located a few feet from the open foundations of 9 and 11 Friendships St.

“We’ve been trying for what feels like a hundred years to get the other two lots built, but it’s really been about four to five years,” Zall said.

Each home will include a shared kitchen and laundry facilities, along with lockable bedrooms featuring individual bathrooms.

“The first floor of each residence will be handicapped accessible allowing four tenants with mobility issues to move in – something we need since finding units for the mobility-challenged has been a horrendous challenge,” Zall said. “We’re still working out the subsidy side of the project, so it hasn’t been determined who will be moving in, whether its veterans, elderly or people who can afford the full rent.”

Boarding house or duplex?

But city planning and development officials said on Tuesday that any plans to have six unrelated people living in each building, each with their own rooms, makes the residences boarding houses under zoning regulations.

“And that’s not the floor plan approved by the Planning & Zoning Commission,” said Michelle Scovish, the city’s planning, zoning and wetlands official. “If there’s been a change, that, at a minimum should be brought to me and possibly to the Planning and Zoning Commission for approval of modifications.”

Scovish said the city defines a family-style residence as dwellings in which occupiers maintain a “common household.”

“That means sharing things like food, laundry detergent and toothpaste,” she said. “That doesn’t include things like hot-plates and key-locked doors.”

Director of Economic Development and Planning Felix Reyes said the duplexes, set to be placed on a dead-end street off Willetts Avenue, were all approved for use as two-family dwellings.

“Not as residences in which three strangers are living and one can leave and another person move right in after,” he said. “And then a new person would have the same access without other tenants having any idea who they are.”

Friendship Street is located in the city’s R-2 medium density residential district, which is set aside for single and two-family dwellings.

Zall contends the incoming duplexes are not boarding houses since each building was approved for use a two-family home. She said the four sets of three tenants will each share a lease.

“That’s a total of four units with three people living in each one,” she said. “We’re trying to be respectful of the (city’s) rules, but all kinds of people share apartments – it's a common thing.”

Julie Savin, CEO and president of Eastern Connecticut Housing Opportunities, Inc., or ECHO, the nonprofit agency serving as project manager for the Friendship Street project, said the planned duplexes at 9 and 11 Friendship St., expected to be compete by March, are configured exactly as the 13 Friendship St. duplex.

“They’re based on that same shared-space design and that residence (at 13 Friendship St.) has been occupied like that for years,” she said, adding those rooms contain small refrigerators and microwaves brought in by tenants.

“That allows them to stay in if they choose and enjoy their privacy or use the shared kitchen,” Savin said.

Zall said the rooms are expected to be rented for $800 a month and no move-in date has yet been set. She said some renters are likely to include people experiencing homelessness.

Zall said the roughly $1 million project was funded by a state Department of Housing grant program aimed at providing affordable housing to low-income residents through the use of rental subsidies.

The roommate-style configuration of the residences, which are taxable buildings, carries advantages and drawbacks, Zall said.

“The huge upside is for people suffering from a sense of isolation and want that sense of community,” she said. “But it does mean living in a home with two other people. And it’s definitely allowed.”

Reyes said the city supports Zall’s work toward increasing the city’s affordable housing stock.

“The idea behind the Friendship Street duplexes was to provide an affordable housing options to families,” he said.

j.penney@theday.com