Thomas Breen Photo
McBride: Our clients need a place to go.
New Haven’s top economic development official has promised to help a Grand Avenue homeless shelter find a new home now that the zoning board has denied its request for permission to move to an empty building on an industrial strip around the corner.
During the March meeting of the Board of Zoning Appeals (BZA), the board denied without prejudice the request from Emergency Shelter Management Services (ESMS) to receive a use variance to operate an emergency shelter in a light industrial zone.
ESMS currently runs the homeless shelter out of a building at 645 Grand Ave. The shelter is 6,400 square feet and serves 50 – 75 men per night, depending on the season.
After learning over two years ago that it needed to leave its building to make way for an expansion expansion of the adjacent Farnam Courts public housing complex, ESMS has been looking for a new location elsewhere in the city.
Ultimately, ESMS decided that it would try to move the shelter to 293 – 295 East St., a 6,000 square-foot abandoned building that stands in the shadow of the former English Power plant, on the same block as a strip club, a methadone clinic, and an expanding kitchen supply store.
Allan Appel File Photo
Clients waiting for the Grand Ave. shelter to open.
The BZA denied the shelter its variance request at its most recent monthly meeting because, commissioners said, the proposed new location is inappropriate for residential use. The board, influenced by arguments made in a City Plan advisory report and in an oppositional letter signed and submitted by four Fair Haven-area alders, cited several reasons for 293 – 295 East St.‘s unsuitability to house the shelter.
These reasons included:
The site’s proximity to a flood plain, and ESMS’s lack of an adequate floor elevation plan to demonstrate how they would modify the building to protect residents from potential flooding.
The location of an active railroad directly behind the building.
The site’s proximity to frequent heavy truck traffic and industrial dumping associated with Simkin Industries, which stores metal at an adjacent location at 189 – 259 East St.
The possibility of high levels of dust circulation in the shelter, particularly in the areas of the building with windows facing the Simkin Industries storage area.
The shelter’s incongruity with the Mill River Plan, which the Board of Alders voted in 2014 to include in the City’s Comprehensive Plan, which envisions that stretch of East Street as appropriate for light industrial and commercial use, and not residential use.
In a letter submitted to the BZA in opposition to the shelter’s variance use request, Wooster Square Alder Aaron Greenberg, East Rock Alder Jessica Holmes, Fair Haven Alder Jose Crespo, and Fair Haven Alder Ernie Santiago expressed their support for the shelter in general and their opposition to this move in particular.
“Let us be clear,” they wrote. “We would like the shelter to continue to operate and provide vital services to its clients. But as representatives of the Fair Haven area, we feel responsible to ensure that those services are delivered to visitors and our own constituents at a safe and appropriate location. 293 – 295 East St. is not such a location.”
During the board’s deliberations at the end of the March meeting, board members expressed similar concerns.
“This is an incredibly difficult matter,” BZA chair Benjamin Trachten said. “But it’s just not a great plan as I see it.”
“There’s no real determination that this is a reasonable use for the space,” he continued. “Its location and proximity to the flood zone renders it debatable as to whether it’s hospitable for occupation by human beings for residence or for sleep.”
“I don’t want anybody to think that we are opposed to shelters in general,” agreed fellow BZA member Pat King. “Or that we are opposed to taking care of the less fortunate members of our community. But I think that if we’re going to do it, I think that we have an obligation to do it correctly and to do it safely and to do it under conditions that will render the location habitable and an asset to the community.”
Ultimately, the board voted to deny the variance use request without prejudice.
Usually, if the BZA votes to deny a variance request, the applicant cannot appear before the board again with the same or a substantially similar request. This is because the votes are based on fact and not on political or environmental contingencies, City Plan Director Karyn Gilvarg told the Independent.
However, the “without prejudice” component of the denial vote means that ESMS’s owners have a bit more wiggle room than other applicants who have been denied by the BZA.
If they take meaningful measures to find a new, more suitable location over the next 12 months, and, failing to find a new home, if they modify their current site plan and variance request enough to address some of the concerns of the board, then ESMS would be allowed to submit the same or a similar variance request for BZA consideration.
Nemerson Promises Help
293-295 East St.
The city’s Economic Development department promised to offer their resources and expertise to help the shelter find a new home elsewhere in the city.
During the BZA hearing, Economic Development Director Mattnew Nemerson said that his team knows how to help.
“The mayor is very, very much committed to solving this problem,” he said. “We’re committed from a real estate and from an economic development standpoint to find the right real estate solution.”
“My staff knows every building in the city,” he continued. “We also know lots of financing mechanisms. We would love to be part of the solution.”
In a subsequent interview, Nemerson explained that his department regularly provides non-profits with assistance in finding appropriate buildings for their operations as well as for finding and raising funds to help defray costs of setting up shop in town. He said that his department and ESMS are already in correspondence, and that they plan on formally meeting in the next few weeks to discuss other potential locations for the shelter as well as means for raising money to help cover the cost of the move.
“Right now, we’re still looking at potential homes,” ESMS board member Curtis McBride told the Independent. “We’re going to work with the city and Mr. Nemerson to see if there’s some other place we can relocate to. Our main goal is to make sure that our clients have a place to go to.”
Some of the alders' arguments are legit, e.g., the need to plan for floods. Others, not so much. Yes, there is a rail line next to the property. But it typically has very little traffic and the trains run at about 10 m.p.h.