New Haven Independent

Two matters came before the Board of Zoning Appeals Tuesday concerning the block between College, George, High and Crown Streets, where Hartford developer Bob Landino aims to build a 19-story tower of luxury condos with parking and street-level retail.

As the city pushes forward a 31-story complex at the Shartenberg site, city officials, developers and skeptics alike have been watching the College Street block as a test of the strength of New Haven’s housing market.

Landino, a former state representative, hired politically connected zoning attorney Anthony Avallone to shepherd the project (pictured) through the city approvals process. The BZA approved the envelope for the project in September 2006 — over a year ago. While some cringed at the density, city officials praised the proposal for bringing new pedestrian traffic and shoppers to an “under-developed” stretch of downtown.

Emerging happily from a painless approval process, Landino told the Independent he aimed to start building “in the early fall of 2007.”

It’s fall, and no sign of a single construction plan.

Tenants, who were forced to relocate, have begun the transition. Gone is TK’s American Café, known for its hot wings and ample TV screens. Cooper’s dress shop has found a new place to go. (Click here to read a previous story on the tenants pushed out.)

Sanjay Patil (pictured above) remains selling beer and whiskey nips at the corner of College and Crown Streets, searching for a new home for the business he’s had for 18 years. He bemoaned his uncertain fate Tuesday as the BZA quickly approved developers’ request to extend zoning approval for another year, until Sept. 30, 2008.

Patil said his new landlords have pushed back his eviction date until March 2008.

Attorney Avallone tried to quash the rumors of the condo project’s demise: “They’re still going ahead,” he said. Since developers got approval for an envelope, not specific plans, they still have room to change the project as long as it remains within that envelope.

Barred From The Temple Plan

Meanwhile, Patil and his business remain in flux. He came close to finding a new home this summer, but found the city didn’t want him there.

Patil’s options were limited to start. By law, Patil can’t relocate within 500 feet of the new Cooperative Arts & Humanities High School on College Street. Nor may he relocate within 1,500 feet of another liquor store, without a zoning variance.

Only one downtown area is shielded from these laws — the zone bounded by Temple, Chapel, and Church Streets and the Oak Street Connector, in other words, the Macy’s, Malley’s and mall blocks. The Wine Thief liquor store recently found its way into that zone, securing a spot on Crown Street.

Patil thought he could, too. He eyed a spot at 21 Temple St., owned by the New Haven Parking Authority. Olympia Building LLC won a city bidding process to lease out the storefronts as part of the city’s Temple Street revitalization. The Nicotras handed him a lease to move his liquor store into the slot abandoned by the Safari Caffeine Lounge, a gourmet Morroccan coffee shop that died in a bizarre act of sabotage.

City Approval Granted, Then Taken Away

Things were going well for Patil. He signed the lease. In June, he got the city zoning administrator, Frank Gargiulo, to sign off on a document permitting him to sell liquor at that location. Then, as Patil’s lawyer Vincent Amendola tells it, “the city pulled the plug.”

Suddenly, the city reversed its decision. A letter from Livable Cities Initiative chief Andy Rizzo said he was “authorizing the rescinding of the zoning approval for a package store at 21 Temple St.” because the landlord had not signed the lease.”

As it turns out, the city did not see a package store as part of the Temple Revival.

“The New Haven Parking Authority said, ‘We don’t want that use. Liquor stores cause trouble,’” explained Phil Pastore of the city’s corporation counsel office. As the landlord, the Parking Authority has complete discretion over who gets to rent there, said Pastore. “They can prohibit anything they want.”

Patil, however, didn’t take “no” for an answer. He appealed the rescission before the BZA, not once but twice. The first time, in July, he withdrew the application because the lease had no signature. He readdressed the board Tuesday with a new lawyer and an identical request, and was again shot down.

“You Have To Leave”

Patil’s lawyer, Amendola, tried to make his case that his client was aggrieved by the city’s back-and-forth on permission to sell liquor on Temple Street. The board cut him off: “He doesn’t have permission to occupy. He doesn’t have a signed lease!” said Pastore.

Amendola replied his client had paid permit fees, had invested in moving to Temple Street, and that his signing the lease constituted an agreement between landlord and tenant.

BZA Chair Cathy Weber struck her gavel to stop him. “If you cannot produce me a signed lease now, this is it. You have to leave.”

Amendola struggled to explain why, after over two months since his last appearance before the board, Patil couldn’t get Olympia or the Parking Authority to sign the lease. “Something happened,” he said. He continued to explain why his lease was still binding even though his landlords apparently do not want him there. “I’m not finished,” he struggled over interruptions.

“You do not have to be if I want to talk!” called out Weber. The board voted to dismiss the case, ruling that since Patil didn’t have the landlord’s consent to rent the space, he couldn’t seek approval to conduct activity there.

The Search For A Home

After hitting a wall with the Temple Street quest, Patil says he is growing exasperated, on the brink of losing his livelihood. “I’ve had this store 18 years. I don’t have another store.— that’s all I have.”

“I thought the city was going to help me, but no one has helped me,” he said in the hallway after the BZA showdown.

City officials rejected that characterization. “He is not a victim,” said Pastore. Pastore said he alone spent 50 hours this summer with Patil’s real estate agent trying to help him find a new place. The city offered him four or five locations downtown, including the Chapel Street storefront that used to hold Bottega Giuliana. The city pledged to support Patil before the BZA if he sought those properties, Pastore said. Patil declined the suggestions and went for Temple Street.

“We’ve been working with all of them to try to relocate,” said Economic Development chief Kelly Murphy, “but at the end of the day, it’s not our project and it’s not our obligation.”

Meanwhile, Murphy remained hesitantly optimistic about the Landino project. Developers have been “looking at other uses beyond residential” to make the project work, she said. “It’s not an easy project for him to do. We’d rather have it be done a little slower and be done right.”