She’s Not Celebrating

by Paul Bass | March 23, 2006 9:29 AM | | Comments (7)

Anstress Farwell showed up with 500 other citizens to the Betsy Ross Arts Magnet Middle School for a long-awaited public hearing on Yale-New Haven Hospital’s proposed cancer center — only to find out a deal had been struck that changes everything. Farwell (pictured), who heads an advocacy group called the Urban Design League, vowed to keep the pressure on to stop a 1,200-car garage from being built near the center.

The deal — announced just an hour before the aldermanic public hearing by jubilant politicians, hospital officials and labor activists — broke the logjam that had delayed the proposed $430 million for a year. It appears to settle some of the thorniest issues dividing the community, chief among them terms of a unionizing election campaign taking place among blue-collar workers at the hospital.

Farwell’s group had joined with the labor-affiliated groups demanding changes in the cancer center plan this past year — at public events. The League had no seat at the table in the discussions with officials over a final agreement. Now, Farwell said, her group, and her issues, were left out of the deal.

“I feel really ticked. Because it all came forward in the last couple of hours,” Farwell said at the school Wednesday night. “Everybody said they knew it was going to happen like this.

“I don’t feel used. I feel excluded. We’re not stopping here.”

The Saga of Lot E

What she and the League plan not to stop talking about is “Lot E” — the land near the cancer center bounded by Dwight, Howe, Frontage and Legion. The deal calls for the city to sell or lease that land to the hospital, which will in turn pick a developer to build a parking garage for 1,200 cars.

The League as well as neighborhood groups in Dwight and West River wanted some other kind of development on that land, a mix of retail, housing, maybe biotech.

Farwell noted that Yale-New Haven envisions needing 400 more parking spaces when the cancer center comes on line. “You don’t need to build 1,200 spaces for 400 cars,” Farwell said. She’s concerned that the garage will support future hospital expansion, in the process encouraging more car traffic rather than encouraging people to carpool, use mass transit, walk or bike.

In general, her group has argued that the design of this development will tear at the city’s urban fabric by being geared too much toward drivers rather than pedestrians and by not integrating itself enough into street-level activity. (In a previous Independent article, she argued, “You don’t give away the comfort and safety of people,” Farwell said. “If you keep building parking garages and widening roads, you get further from building the public sector. The city is at a tipping point. The hospital is a good place to start. It’s a health issue. And we just have to invest in the public sector.”)

City Development Administrator Kelly Murphy, who helped negotiate the deal with the hospital Tuesday and Wednesday, argued that the larger garage will support other development the hospital has agreed to undertake in the area, notably a new office on Park Street.

East Rock Alderman Ed Mattison, who has taken a leading role on the board on the cancer center, echoed some of Farwell’s concerns. “I am very concerned,” he said, “that putting 7,000 new car trips a day in that area is not a good idea.”

For that reason, he said, he and other aldermen successfully pushed for the deal announced Wednesday to include a “parking management study” to examine “all steps that can be taken to avoid parking in that neighborhood.” Suggestions include improving bus service, “paying people not to drive,” enforcing residential parking rules, and perhaps re-routing the downtown trolley to include the hospital area.

Unlike Farwell, Mattison argued that a garage is needed on Lot E. “Otherwise people just park on the street. You don’t want to have people circling around looking for spaces,” he said. But he said he and others would “press for [the garage to be as small]” as possible.

Another Chance Next Month

Wednesday’s hearing at Betsy Ross was an anticlimax after the City Hall announcement of the cancer center deal. What was to be a full night of public comment shrank to an hour and a half of passionate but at this point irrelevant remarks — irrelevant because details of the new agreement aren’t public yet. They will be by the end of the month, and a second public hearing is scheduled April 6. Look for Anstress Farwell to be there.







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Comments

Posted by: b | March 23, 2006 11:18 AM

What is the reason for not placing the garage below ground? Is it an issue of sea level?
Is this something that has been discussed.
If impossible what about a garage similar to Temple street where retail occurs at ground level?
I would think this would be advantageous to the developer as the extra spots could accomodate the retail shoppers.
I agree that less spots would be healthier for the community, but if the hospital will not budge on the requested capacity New Haven should be pushing for a more pedestrian accomodating development.

Posted by: Esbe [TypeKey Profile Page] | March 23, 2006 3:26 PM

B -- underground parking is unbelievably expensive, and if that kind of money is sitting around I would rather see it used for something else. On the other hand, ground level retail (or how about medical offices) has worked in several garages in different parts of town and I think it is a great idea.

Posted by: charlie | March 23, 2006 7:18 PM

Come on, this debate is absolutely ridiculous. The new garage can easily be "wrapped" with retail, housing and office space, as well as have a couple of stories below ground.

The Cancer Center needs to be built immediately.

Posted by: Dwight Resident | March 23, 2006 8:34 PM

I would recommend a more progressive idea.
Since 70% of the employees fro YNHH come from
outside New Haven why use a shuttle to bring
them into work every day. The Hospital can help us
keep the air cleaner by promoting "a People Mover"
approach The transportation hubs would be located
along the out ring of New Haven. Train Stations
would be a good beginning also Routes along I-95
and I-91. Look how sucessful the Yale Shuttle is.
A bus with 30 passenger would pollute the air less than 30 cars waiting in traffic along Howe street. Also we need a master plan for the area. and need to find our why the Yale Medical school is not talking to the Hospital. Dwight Resident.

Posted by: Dwight Resident | March 23, 2006 8:52 PM

this is an example OF WHAT WE DON'T WANT

Saratoga Hospital, like most other medical centers around the nation, is a bad neighbor. Because they are putatively engaged in life-saving activities, hospitals are generally excused from any design standards, especially where the comfort of cars is concerned. Hospitals ruthlessly annex building lots around them for parking and brutally suburbanize civic environments. Notice that extreme car dependency itself is responsible for a lot of the health problems suffered by Americans -- obesity, diabetes, coronary illness -- feeding our hospitals with evermore cases of preventable illness. The result is a medical establishment which itself behaves like a metastisizing disease.

HEREIS THE LINK FOR THE PHOTO

http://www.kunstler.com/eyesore_200411.html

Posted by: hersheykj | March 24, 2006 10:06 AM

I think the concerns Farwell et al has are important to consider and lend a balance to any discussion. However, what Farwell and her supporters do not realize is their efforts are misdirected at the hospital. The city's infrastructure needs to be able to support her ideas for public transportation- and they are simply terribly inadequate currently. I imagine parking is difficult enough for employees- it's simply aweful for hospital visitors and making clinic appointments. If New Haven had a rail and bus system like Manhattan or Boston- fine, fewer spots might work, but with employees and a 1000 bed hospital- 1200 seems like it might barely be enough. I can't tell you how many times I circled the neighborhood wasting time, gas, and polluting the area looking for a spot. If there was a lot for me where spots were readily available- well, I think you get the point. Now if they want to build a subway stop and new rail system or bus/shuttle terminal on that lot- would that be more suitable?? I doubt it.

Posted by: Alpine | April 26, 2006 9:48 PM

I think many people who advocate building the garage miss a simple point. Namely, by building a garage, above or underground, naked or wrapped in retail, one would ecourage more city traffic with all nasty consequences. Why not have more retail or other city attracations without the garage? Just leave you car, read on the train, be happy.

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