New Haven Independent

The meeting is scheduled for 6 p.m. on April 2, in the basement hearing room of the Hall of Records at 200 Orange St. That room was the scene of a heated meeting last week at which Boston-based consultant Steven G. Cecil (pictured) presented a plan that would lay the framework for a series of developments along the Rt. 34 corridor. The expansive site runs along Legion Avenue and North Frontage Road from around Dwight Street to the Boulevard. Click here to read last week’s story.

View the latest plans on this page of the city’s website

The meeting erupted into discord as speaker after speaker said the presentation did not reflect what they thought had been agreed upon during a number of public and stakeholder meetings over months. At the evening’s end, the city development team announced they would delay submission of the Rt. 34 West Municipal Development Plan to the Board of Aldermen while they addressed stakeholders’ concerns.

The city’s draft MDP was also criticized by two commissioners at Tuesday’s meeting of the city’s Development Commission, which will review and approve the proposal.

Meanwhile, in an interview with the Independent this week, Cecil and the city’s six-person development team sought to correct what they believe are misconceptions about the plan.

They said the discord stemmed from three main issues: density of housing, the number of lanes on the street and the level of community outreach.

Housing Density

Last week, residents said they were shocked that the number of housing units in the plan area had jumped from the 300-400 that had been discussed during the number of forums held by the city since the first workshop in early October to the 600-800 units Cecil had talked about on Tuesday.

Assistant Director of Comprehensive Planning Susmitha Attota said there was a misunderstanding: The number of proposed housing units for the corridor remained the same as the last time stakeholders met on Feb. 10. At that time, Cecil presented a draft development program with 400 to 600 units of housing (500,000 to 700,000 square feet of residential use).

Last week, Cecil said the plan would likely include 600 to 800 units of housing - but that figure included the so-called “context area,” a wide area encompassing the West River, Dwight and Hill North neighborhoods. The number of units expected for the corridor remained the same.

In any case, Cecil stressed, the number of units isn’t set in stone. The city’s draft proposal is not a development project, but a Municipal Development Plan, which defines types of uses for the area. The MDP lays the framework for development; then the land will be developed block by block, with public hearings for each component.

The proposed MDP would set the maximum height for all buildings in the corridor at four stories tall, Attota said.

One-Way Streets

Last week, several speakers balked at the city’s plan to have Legion Avenue carry one-way traffic east and Frontage carry one-way traffic west. A previous plan suggested building two two-way streets, a concept that many stakeholders favored. As of February, the two-way plan still appeared to be on the table.

City officials said in the end, building two two-way streets wasn’t viable.

“It was never on the table for DOT [the Department of Transportation],” said Chrissy Bonanno, the city’s deputy economic development director.

DOT’s opposition was not the only factor, officials added: The city’s transportation department did its own analysis and recommended against building two-way streets.

To build two-way streets, the city would have to widen the curbs, cutting into developable land by 10.8 meters. That would go against the purpose of the development, which is to knit together two neighborhoods that have been torn apart by a highway that was never built.

“Do you think you can knit something back together by adding more asphalt in?” Attota asked. Instead, the team preferred building two narrow, one-way streets with on-street parking and a bike lane separated from the street by a row of trees.

That option “creates a very livable space,” argued city transportation chief Mike Piscitelli. “City staff is very comfortable with a one-way platform,” he said.

At the Development Commission meeting this week, two commissioners begged to differ. They said the consultant didn’t take into account the wishes of the neighborhoods.

“This neighborhood is a good example of good principles that didn’t work,” said Frances (Bitsie) Clark, the aldermanic representative to the commission. “This part of the city was destroyed because of good planning principles” overshadowing the needs of the residents. She criticized the plan for failing to improve a street layout where residential roads end in dead-ends and one-way traffic whizzes by. She said the plan as it was presented could divide the area into three neighborhoods, West River, the Hill and “something in the middle.”

Kevin Ewing, a fellow commissioner and an outspoken critic at last week’s meeting, said he wants one road on the Legion Avenue said with the island and Frontage Road being removed. Ewing said he thought there might be some progress by the April meeting to alleviate the discord.

He agreed with the city’s analysis that the discord was caused mostly by the consultant’s plan for between 600-800 housing units where the residents had expected 300-400, and the plan to keep both Legion Avenue and North Frontage Road as one-way streets.

“A Transparent Process”

The city created the MDP through a series of meetings beginning in July. To formalize community input, the city drafted a neighborhood “stakeholder” list and held three meetings with that group. Three public information workshops were also held before last week.

Throughout the meetings, the city development team presented a series of options for the corridor, revising them along the way. In response to charges that no one knew about last week’s meeting, Attota said the meeting was noticed on the Independent’s calendar, on the city Web site, through emails and through 200 flyers, in English and Spanish, that were put into grocery bags by Shaw’s Supermarket.

City officials said they were troubled to hear accusations of non-transparency after what they called an exhaustive public process. The minutes from all the meetings as well as the latest plans are available here.

“This has been a very transparent, cooperative approach,” said Piscitelli. A lot of resources have been devoted to the development, including hours of staff time and personal attention from top-ranking state officials, he said.

“We arrived on a preferred concept plan based on a thoughtful analysis,” he said.

At a Feb. 10 meeting with stakeholders, the options had been slimmed down to two. At last week’s meeting, the city presented a final preferred plan.

If it had gained positive feedback, the city would have moved forward with a final stakeholder meeting, at which stakeholders would take a vote on the plan. If they approved, the city would have submitted the MDP to the Board of Aldermen in April, said City Plan chief Karyn Gilvarg (pictured).

Now plans have been set back at least a month, Gilvarg said. The city is setting up a private meeting with neighborhood leaders; then another public info meeting on April 2, and then another stakeholder meeting, date yet to be determined.

The proposal will not move forward without approval from stakeholders. The stakeholder group comprises 36 people, including neighborhood leaders, aldermen, state officials and business leaders.

“We’ll revise it until they say yes,” said Gilvarg.

Len Honeyman contributed reporting to this story.