New Haven Independent

Posted by: Josh Smith | November 21, 2008 2:46 PM

If you plan for cars and traffic, you'll get cars and traffic. If you plan for people and places, you'll get people and places. Avoid developing an ugly, sprawling strip-mall built exclusively for cars to pull in and out of, and begin developing a dense, mixed-use series of buildings that look attractive. There's not much that's uglier than a single-story strip-mall with a parking lot between the building and the road, and I moved away from the suburbs to get away from that, as I'm sure many others have done as well. Put appealing stores like a quality food market, a restaurant, and a coffee shop, and a general store/pharmacy on the bottom floor (a place where you can go to get stuff you'd normally have to drive to Wal-Mart or something to buy), and have people live in two or three floors above the stores in townhouse configurations. At the same time, make the surrounding area more walkable so those in the community can access those stores. This is how I would design my ideal neighborhood. Those things, along with a city square, for neighbors to go out and meet, or a beautiful place to sit and read a book when weather is warm.

These ideas of "New Urbanism", when properly used, create a better quality of life. If all neighborhoods in New Haven were built this way, along with traffic-calming devices and methods, it would be easy to walk to the store and get whatever you needed within your own neighborhood instead of having to drive everywhere. This is very important, especially when a lot of seniors are living in an area. There are instances in communities where seniors can't go anywhere unless they know someone who drives, because they are not near mass transit, and there are no nearby stores that are of any use to them, so this is important to keep in mind. As an added benefit, the residential occupants of each mixed-use building keep the street from going "dead" at night, like our "strip-mall streets" of today, where street activity drops after business hours. This street liveliness magnifies exponentially when you have things like outdoor cafes on sidewalks. So, remember, when you go to build, don't forget to build mixed-use from here on out, and that goes for every neighborhood everywhere. I'm not sure if I wrote this all very well, but I hope someone from the city reads this and begins to influence policies that are in line with this New Urbanist vision, as the sustainability of our city (and ultimately, of all cities) really depends upon how well and how quickly we create dense, walkable communities in which citizens can really live (as oppose to merely inhabit).

Posted by: Your Tax Dollars at Work | November 21, 2008 8:04 PM

The commercial real estate market is tanking (and will remain so for some time) and they're using public money to build a shopping center in the middle of nowwhere?????

Posted by: Gary Doyens | November 21, 2008 9:14 PM

Gotta love the government nitwits and how they think - don't study the economics of a million plus dollar investment - hire the architect first and spend $70K on that; and then worry about whether it will work. It's the same with the schools. Who give s a damn? It's not their money.

Posted by: Alphonse Credenza | November 22, 2008 8:54 AM

Here is socialist government at its very worst. A plan to build where no one else will, simply because government says build.

Government projects such as these are poorly planned, badly run and generally fail to provide what is promised.

If there is no genuine demand that someone will step in and fill, no government project can create it. Stop wasting our money!

Posted by: Ned | November 22, 2008 9:24 AM

Another huge waste of tax money. Also, thanks for the reminder of the probably, if not illegal, then completely corrupt church payoff scam.

"the recession makes for bad timing" - It's never a bad time to spend when you can just steal more money from taxpayers.

"Hamden has long erected fences by the edge of the neighborhood to prevent people from crossing the city-town border." Maybe a moat would work better?

Posted by: Your Tax Dollars at Work | November 22, 2008 1:13 PM

About a decade ago, the Housing Authority was sold on this "great idea": to put a locally operated laundromat across the street from the then Elmhaven project and let the tenants operate it -- build it too.

It was a nightmare! Hundreds of thousands of dollars of the HANH & other government funds "loaned" to the "business people" (read "local politicians" just disappeared into a deep hole. The project of course failed.

I guess Yogi "it's deja vu all over again." These guys just never learn!

Posted by: Walt | November 22, 2008 2:32 PM

That site, I believe was built in the sixties and no money (Legal) was ever made there.

If it could not be successful in the heyday of Rockview and Brookside, what makes them think it will succeed now?

Posted by: JMS | November 23, 2008 12:23 AM

10...9...8...7...6...

(Counting down until corruption scandle hits HANH)

...5...4...3...2...1...

JMS

Posted by: Chris Gray | November 24, 2008 1:13 AM

What can I say?

I could have taken that photo in 1983 while first getting lost from Eric Sandahl's directions over that hill to our Elder Newspaper's typesetter in Hamden or I could have taken it in 1990 when I was riding up with Dave Weber, the Coalition for People organizer for Rockview and Brookside.

I wish that the little utopia Josh Smith painted could be built but historically and as autopsied here by other writers, this is project that doesn't seem to hold much hope without a major shift in cultural values, forget about the money! I don't imagine our new President will be that good.

He's sort of stuck with the Democrats who are already in places of power here and we know their track record.

Posted by: new haven suburbia | November 24, 2008 10:30 AM

Why not allow a private developer to build high end countryhouses out there! People would stay in the city instead of moving out to the suburbs! The city would collect more taxes from these high end houses! I moved out of New Haven because most of the houses are too close to each other! I realize that New Haven is an urban city and that affordable housing is always a concern of the politicians but this isolated section of the city is an unfair location to stick the elderly and poor and providing them with a laundry and small grocery store in a strip mall is not a community! The city needs to take advantage of it's desirable undeveloped locations such as this westville location.

Posted by: Anna | November 25, 2008 9:33 AM

I've said this before, but WHY -- when so many people agree that that's a terrible location for public housing -- does New Haven insist on rebuilding there? Isolating a bunch of low-income people in the middle of nowhere is just a recipe for disaster. I know the original idea was that the bucolic surroundings would be nice for people, but instead it just moved a bunch of people out of context with no easy way to get around and nothing interesting to do and no one but other low-income folks to interact with. The ability for people to move out of low-income housing depends on the sort of informal networking that occurs when people get to meet new people, hear about new opportunities, develop good role models, etc. etc. etc. Why deprive people of those opportunities?

It would be one thing if there was pull from the people who will eventually live out there, but I don't know of any prospective residents who have advocated for that site. It is such a waste, and the crime that has, in the past, developed in the neighborhood ruins West Rock Park -- the largest state park -- which could be a tremendous asset for everyone.