Thomas Breen photos
Proposed designs for new 95-97 Howe apartments.
97 Howe St. today.
The Feldman brothers development team received a key city sign-off for a proposed new six-story, 30-unit apartment complex on Howe Street.
But not before City Plan commissioners received an admonition from a local preservationist that the project is possible only because of the “demolition by neglect” of two existing vacant, dilapidated, historic buildings that will be knocked down to pave the way for the new apartments.
The approval and admonition came at Wednesday night’s regular monthly meeting of the City Plan Commission on the second floor of City Hall. Commissioners voted unanimously in support of MOD Equities’ site plans for the proposed new market-rate apartment complex at 95 – 97 Howe St.
Jacob and Josef Feldman, the New York-based brothers who run the New Haven-headquartered property management and development company, said they hope to have the as-of-right complex constructed and open by the spring of 2020.
MOD Equities’ Jacob Feldman, engineer Douglas Reich, architect Samuel Gardner, and attorney Gregory Muccilli at Wednesday’s City Plan Commission meeting.
They said they plan to start pulling permits in the next two or three months for the demolition of the two buildings that currently stand on the site of the future apartments: a two-story office building at 95 Howe and a three-story, six-unit apartment building at 97 Howe, both of which have long been vacant.
Local architect Samuel Gardner and attorney Gregory Muccilli said the proposed 30,320 square-foot development will have 16 one-bedroom apartments, 11 two-bedroom apartments, and three three-bedroom apartments. Every residential unit will have its own deck, as large as 10 feet wide by eight feet deep, and the complex will have 27 on-site parking spaces (17 in a first-level garage and 10 available in surface parking spots ringing the complex, 12 bicycle parking spots, and a private gym.
Muccilli with the proposed designs for 95-97 Howe.
“The new building will serve to increase the residential presence along Howe Street,” Muccilli said. “The property is located one block north of the six-story Novella apartments, the six-story Campus View apartments and the Howe Street garage, which is a very large Yale garage. And it’s across the street from the six-story Off Broadway apartments, the seven-story Seabury Cooperative, and the open surface lot where Cambridge Realty Partners has proposed a seven-story, 97-unit apartment complex.”
City Planner Stacey Davis and City Plan Director Aïcha Woods.
Before the commissioners took their vote, City Plan Director Aïcha Woods read onto the record a letter that New Haven Preservation Trust Director of Preservation Services Elizabeth Holt had sent to the commission earlier on Wednesday.
In the letter, Holt, who toured the current 95 Howe and 97 Howe buildings with a group from MOD Equities, warned that the historic structures’ states of disrepair were not inevitable. Rather, they result from years of neglect, going back well before the Feldmans purchased the properties in late 2016.
She stuck by her assessment that the buildings are so decayed that no likely no developer would find it worth their financial while to invest in rehabbing them, rather then demolishing them and building anew.
And she cautioned the commissioners and the city against allowing landlords to run historic buildings into the ground to make way for new projects that might jar with the architectural character of neighborhoods like the Dwight National Historic District.
“As I said in connection with neighborhood concerns about [the] proposed demolition,” Holt wrote, “the deterioration at 95 and 97 Howe Street began years ago. If the properties had been adequately maintained, we would not be weighing their future today. Finding tools to encourage owners to maintain their historic buildings should be a priority for the City, the Preservation Trust, and the State Historic Preservation Office.”
As MOD Equities’ preliminary designs for the proposed new complex, Holt wrote that “the schematic design presented by the owners to the Preservation Trust is a highly stylized, perhaps even eccentric, design and would be a discordant addition to the Dwight neighborhood. New construction need not slavishly imitate historic styles, but it would be unfortunate to approve a design so at odds with its surroundings.”
Holt’s letter is reprinted in full at the bottom of the article.
City Plan Commission Vice-Chair Leslie Radcliffe.
After reading Holt’s letter, Woods noted that the concerns the preservation director raised should be discussed as part of a broader conversation in the city about how to prevent “demolition by neglect.” They were not necessarily relevant to the specific discussion at Wednesday’s meeting about the site plan for this particular MOD Equities project.
Woods also noted that the City Plan department does not currently have a design review process, and that the properties are not located in a local historic district, and therefore are not subject to any local historic preservation laws. Since the properties are in a national historic district, the developers do have to provide demolition notices to neighbors 90 days before they knock the current buildings down.
Leslie Radcliffe, serving as the commission’s chair in the absence of Ed Mattison, agreed that Holt’s letter, while worthy of substantive consideration by the city and the state and architectural preservation groups going forward, had little statutory bearing on the site plan for 95 – 97 Howe St. that was before the commissioners that night.
“I don’t think this is a conversation that we should have at this time,” she said.
City Plan Commissioner Jonathan Wharton asked the development team if any neighbors had raised concerns about the proposed demolition and new construction.
“I don’t know of any that have been raised directly to me,” Muccilli said. Except for one, he added. “There was a letter that I received. That was one person we are planning to meet with after Passover, as requested.”
Radcliffe pointed out that Holt had told the Independent in a previous article that, after she toured the two existing buildings with the developers, she had found severely rotted porches, replacement bathrooms, and plenty of other ‘80s retrofits.
“There were some individuals from this preservation group that did do a walk through with you,” Radcliffe said, “and were really shocked at the amount of deterioration that was in those buildings, to the point where it was almost irreparable. You really couldn’t preserve it; you’d have to rebuild it. And they were saddened that it was in that state of repair; disrepair, rather. That there was, at that particular point, nothing you would be able to do with it.’
Holt’s Letter
New Haven Preservation Trust
New Haven Preservation Trust Director of Preservation Services Elizabeth Holt.
Following is a letter that New Haven Preservation Trust Director of Preservation Services Elizabeth Holt sent to the City Plan Commission on April 17 regarding the proposed demolition of 95 Howe and 97 Howe and MOD Equities’s proposed new 30-unit apartment complex for the site.
Dear Aicha,
We are writing to present some comments on the proposed project at 95 and 97 Howe Street, two contributing structures in the Dwight National Historic District. This site raises two separate issues for public consideration.
The first issue concerns the continuing problem of “demolition by neglect.” As I said in connection with neighborhood concerns about [the] proposed demolition, the deterioration at 95 and 97 Howe Street began years ago. If the properties had been adequately maintained, we would not be weighing their future today. Finding tools to encourage owners to maintain their historic buildings should be a priority for the City, the Preservation Trust, and the State Historic Preservation Office.
As we have seen in too many other examples, demolition by neglect eventually becomes so extensive that rehabilitation is economically problematic. We believe that virtually every building can be rehabbed; the question is who is going to do it with little likelihood of a reasonable return. Arguing that these buildings should be preserved is hypothetical without a willing investor. The Preservation Trust regrets their possible demolition, but it is not a solution to let them continue their steady decline.
The second issue for public consideration is the nature of the replacement if the owner cannot be persuaded to renovate the existing buildings. Whether or not the proposed work is as of right, we urge the City to insist that new construction respect the fact that the site is a prominent parcel in a national historic district. The schematic design presented by the owners to the Preservation Trust is a highly stylized, perhaps even eccentric, design and would be a discordant addition to the Dwight neighborhood. New construction need not slavishly imitate historic styles, but it would be unfortunate to approve a design so at odds with its surroundings. We would be happy to point out alternatives elsewhere in New Haven which are clearly contemporary but still respectful of neighborhood integrity.
Sincerely,
Elizabeth Holt
Director of Preservation Services
Have these people even completed the first two projects they were given permission for? Well people do complain that they need parking