New Haven Independent

The Monday night meeting at the Whalley Avenue police substation was prompted by last week’s City Plan Commission approval for a new 40-washer laundromat in the Walgreen’s plaza on Whalley Avenue. The laundromat next needs to receive final approval from the Board of Zoning Appeals at its Dec. 9 meeting.

The nine neighbors at the emergency meeting conceded that BZA approval was nearly inevitable, given the recent OK from the City Plan Commission. They’re falling back onto Plan B: gathering evidence for an appeal of the BZA’s decision.

If it is built, the new laundromat would be part of a local chain of Precision Wash ‘n’ Dry operations owned by brothers Frank and Louis Sproviero. Their idea has met with heavy opposition from locals since it was proposed several months ago. Neighbors think that a laundromat would attract loitering and crime and lower property values in the area.

The opposition has had an uphill battle. A laundromat is an approved use of the structure under the current zoning requirements. The business has shown that it has sufficient parking spots given its planned size. Now Whalley leaders are beginning to put together a case that the laundromat planners are not being entirely honest with their proposal.

Eliezer Greer (pictured at top), one of the leaders of the Whalley-Edgewood-Beaver Hill (WEB) Management Team, handed out copies of what he said was the proposed map of the Walgreens Plaza, including the new laundromat. The map indicated that the laundromat would have 3,900 square feet of retail space, a number significantly higher than the approximately 2,400 square feet that the laundromat’s developers mentioned to the BZA. According to the city’s formula of one parking space per 200 square feet of parking, a 3,900 square-foot business would require 19.5 parking spaces, not the 13 spots currently set aside for the laundromat.

Greer said that the laundromat planners had called a section of the building “office space” in their plans in order to hide the total retail area of their business. “That was said verbally in order to reduce the parking spaces,” he said.

As other evidence of alleged double-dealings by the laundromat’s planners, Greer mentioned that fact that their architect had admitted at the BZA meeting that a large posterboard display of the Walgreen’s parking lot did not correspond to the parking lot as built.

Greer also found it suspicious that the laundromat’s attorney, Anthony Avallone, “was somehow — somehow — present at the City Plan meeting,” a meeting which no one in the Whalley opposition had known about. (Meetings of the City Plan Commission are publicly listed.)

“There seems to be a lot of pieces of this puzzle that don’t add up. Two plus two doesn’t equal four anymore,” said Greer. He said he thinks that a winning appeal could be made on several fronts, including the fuzzy parking space calculation, the dubious parking lot poster, and the attorney’s alleged insider info.

“The only thing we can do is continue to ascertain the facts,” Greer said at the close of the meeting. “Their attoney [Avallone] deals — deals — with the BZA, so we need to deal with the facts.”

“We’re preparing for the day after,” Greer said after the meeting. “We’re letting everyone know we have all the facts lined up.”

A “Realist”

Local resident Marcus Paca (pictured) raised a question of strategy during the meeting. He wanted to know about a “contingency plan.”

“Do we have businesses lined up that want to move into this property?” Paca said. He argued that the BZA might take the opposition more seriously if local residents had another option to offer instead of a laundromat. “They’re going to say, ‘What’s the alternative?’”

“That’s not their business,” said John Vuoso, head of the Whalley Avenue Special Services District. He said that the BZA was concerned with parking alone on this matter.

Vuoso also told Paca that there is a five-to-six month “leakage study” in the works, looking at what products and services Whalley Avenue residents leave the neighborhood to purchase. The results of that study would provide some idea of what kinds of businesses Whalley residents are looking for.

After the meeting, Paca said he worries that an appeal would not be successful unless other interested businesses are found.

For his part, Paca has resigned himself to a laundromat opening. “I’m a realist,” he said, “I think the laundromat is going to come.”

Paca said his focus now is on how to work with the new business to ensure that it is an asset to the community. He wants to talk to the property owner about keeping crime low, employing people in the neighborhood, and giving back to the community.

Paca said he still opposes the laundromat, but wants to work it into the community, if necessary. “I’m not ready to give in, but work in,” Paca said.