By Bill Slocum
Contributing Editor
A longstanding dispute between the town and the Housing Authority of the Town of Greenwich involving the latter’s management of Parsonage Cottage is all but resolved, following votes by the Board of Estimate and Taxation and the Board of Selectmen.
“The financial aspect has been resolved,” said Sam Romeo, chair of the Housing Authority’s Board of Commissioners. “In the end, we’re going to put this in our rear-view mirror. We have great plans for Parsonage Cottage and great things in store for the Housing Authority moving forward.”
A town offer of lower interest rates on debts owed by the Housing Authority was accepted earlier this month. All that remains is finalizing the paperwork and gaining approval from the Representative Town Meeting. Parsonage Cottage, a 40-bed assisted-living facility, is owned by the town but managed by the Authority under a 99-year lease, financing for which became a two-and-a-half-year bone of contention.
The financial terms agreed to this month requires the Housing Authority pay out $38,000 in debt service annually over a period of 27 years. That will amount to some $50,000 less a year than what the Housing Authority had been paying, according to Authority Executive Director Anthony Johnson.
The Authority had long argued that one of the two debts, originally a Community Development Block Grant, should be forgiven, since it came in the form of a gift and was converted into debt only to gain more advantageous financing for private partners who have since exited. This month, the Authority Board of Commissioners conceded the point of Board of Estimate and Taxation members that the grant had been converted into a loan by the Authority itself, and thus should be paid off just like a conventional loan, though at a zero percent interest rate.
“We were the ones who made it a debt so we could sell tax credits,” Romeo acknowledged.
The Authority had wanted to reduce the six-percent interest on the second, larger debt, owed to the town in financing the Parsonage Cottage lease, by paying off the loan at once and looking for better financing terms in the private market. The BET rejected this, saying they did not want a private entity holding a lien on town property, and instead lowered the interest rate to one percent.
The compromise was not accepted by everyone. At the Board of Selectmen meeting on Friday, Selectman Drew Marzullo voted against the agreement, making the same point the Housing Authority originally had made about the nature of the Community Development Block Grant “loan.”
“While it may be the best deal set forth by the finance board, in my opinion it is not the best deal,” Marzullo said. “The best deal would have been full forgiveness of the loan.”
The Housing Authority initially resisted the BET offer, saying taking on a 27-year debt-servicing agreement would be too encumbering. Johnson notes concerns that Parsonage Cottage’s cash-flow
