An 11-acre parcel of land on Saw Mill Road is up for sale to allow for the construction of affordable housing. According to town officials, plans for the property, located just north of the West River bridge, are still in the early stages but will be a solely “affordable” development.

First Selectman Matt Hoey said the town has been looking to create affordable housing for years and is optimistic about a development on Saw Mill Road.

“The town owns this parcel on Saw Mill. We’ve had this for quite some time. The town is willing and looking to have that property developed specifically for affordable housing,” said Hoey.

According to Hoey, the town is currently seeking a buyer or transferee and applying for grants and funding for any potential development regarding the site.

“What we have done to date is we have sent a letter of intent to apply for Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) monies, CDBG monies, through the Department of Housing for predevelopment work on this project, with the intention that we will apply for that grant with a deadline of June 23,” Hoey said. “The intent is for the town to go out to [Request for Qualification] RFQ and [Request for Proposal] RFP on design concepts.”

While the project is in its early stage, Hoey said the town has preliminary design approaches but wants to remain flexible on any ideas or proposals that may be submitted. Hoey added that, at this point, the town is focusing on nonprofit developers.

“We have some rudimentary ideas of how we’d like to do it but are open to what the potential developers would look to do on that property. Our intention is to solicit proposals from nonprofit developers. And this would be a fully affordable housing,” said Hoey.

The term “affordable housing” can sometimes have a fluid definition in terms of state statute and its implementation. Affordable housing is determined by a particular municipality’s Average Median Income (AMI), which varies greatly across the shoreline and the state.

The greater New Haven calculation of AMI is roughly in the mid-$90,000 per household, and the designation of “affordable” is a percentage of that figure, starting at 80% and going as low as 25% of the AMI.

At this time, it is still too early to definitively determine what the affordable percentage calculation for this proposed site will be or whether it will be a mix of income levels, as some other projects in Guilford have done, according to Hoey.

Hoey said the town has a long-standing commitment to building more affordable housing and is a continuation of that goal with this potential project.

“In our housing plan, which we submitted to the state last year, we made commitments to move forward on this idea, and this is clear evidence that the town is willing to put their money where their mouth is,” Hoey said.

According to Hoey, there are a number of steps, regardless of the final plan, that still needs to occur, but he is confident that the right developer can be partnered with to bring this project to fruition.

“There are still a couple of processes that still need to happen in order to potentially transfer that land to a developer or sell that land to a developer. At this point, we haven’t finalized that process, so the possibilities are similar to what we did at the Woodruff property, where the Guilford’s contribution was the land itself, and that is what is being contemplated here as well,” Hoey said. “We’ve consistently supported affordable housing in Guilford. We’ve been focused on affordable housing for a number of years, going back to the 20-teens. This is not something new, but something I have fully embraced since taking office.”

The Woodruff project, located on Stone House Lane, is proposed to construct 16 units and is slated to be tucked in behind the Guilford Center for Children and overlook Sluice Creek and a section of wetlands and marsh. The current project proposal is a concept with four buildings with four units each.

“Affordable housing comes in a lot of forms and fashions. One of the alternative descriptions is ‘workforce housing,” Hoey said. “(W)hile we are open to all concepts, either rental properties or home ownership, affordable home ownership is something we are very interested in as opposed to just rentals.”

Despite ideas for what the project should entail, Hoey cautioned that everything is still preliminary, and there is work that must be done before any project can break ground.

“This is all preliminary; we don’t know what it will yield in terms of units. There is still some septic testing that has to be done, and it's also in the middle of a residential neighborhood, so density is probably not going to work with a large number of units,” Hoey said. “One of the concepts may be similar to what’s being done at the Great Hill Cottages by Chris Widmer on State Street just north of the highway. That model seems to be very popular and successful,” said Hoey.