New Haven Independent

Harbour Landing sits on the water at City Point, where oysterers used to drag their loot onto shore from the New Haven Harbor. In the 1980s, the first phase was built, a gated community of 103 units. Plans to expand the complex to a size of 300 units hung in the air for the next two decades, as the condo market suffered.

About a year and a half ago, developers came to the city with plans to complete the long-abandoned expansion, said City Plan Commission staffer Joy Ford. People who’d lived in the complex for 26 years balked at the thought of new condos — 100 units were proposed — blocking harbor views, and turning grassy land into parking lots.

Developers The Christopher Companies revised plans several times, responding to staff and residents’ complaints. They came up with a much scaled-back plan, which was approved unanimously by the City Plan Commission in a meeting Wednesday. The complex is bordered by the harbor, Sea Street and Ella T. Grasso Boulevard, and straddles the private Harbor Close Road. Housing units, which will be sold to individual owners, would be constructed in two phases.

Phase One: Three apartment buildings housing a total of 48 units. Each building has underground parking (for fewer unattractive surface parking spots), with four stories of apartments on top. Previous plans had more buildings with narrow gaps of 40 feet between them, prompting neighbors to protest their loss of a view. New plans widen the gap between apartment buildings to 110 and 150 feet, a change that has appeased members of the existing condo association. Condo Association President David Potter showed up Wednesday in support.

Phase Two: Five single-family homes on Sea Street. Two of the homes fall in the City Point historic district, and will need further approval. Historic District Commission Chair Robert Grzywacz voiced support: He said the two proposed homes looked like “good neighbors” to adjacent buildings, not clashing additions. They would fit in well in an area of mostly single-family homes, he said.

Since public access to the harbor front is required by state law, developers have agreed to construct an eight-foot-wide public promenade along the water. Once some other details are ironed out, the condo expansion should be good to go, said Ford.

City Plan commissioners were pleased to see the plans pass through at long last. “I will say it’s much better than what we saw before. At least, it looks to me like everybody will have a view of the water some way,” said commissioner Marlene Tureck. “This seems to meet everyone’s needs.”

Also at Wednesday’s City Plan Commission, the board approved a deal between the city and Yale announced in August: Yale’s trading $10 million for the rights to develop a parcel of land near Science Park.

The city will agree to give Yale three low-traffic dead-end street blocks: Sachem Street from Winchester to the Canal Line; Mansfield Street south of Sachem; and Prospect Place. In return, Yale’s paying $10,250,000 to upgrade some roads and sidewalks; speed up the construction of the Farmington Canal Greenway and expand Scantlebury Park in the Dixwell neighborhood.

Mike Morand, Yale’s associate vice president for New Haven and state affairs, declined to say what the newly acquired parcel would be used for, except that it would be “academic,” with a possible residential component. The university’s securing the land for development at an unspecified future date, he said.