Markeshia Ricks photo
Salvatore with neighbors Wednesday night.
Bring in people who will value the neighborhood. Make it affordable, but not too “affordable.” And for the good of all, create enough parking to avoid disrupting the neighborhood.
That was the tall order that Wooster Square neighbors gave a fast-moving local developer looking to transform a recently abandoned factory, the former C. Cowles & Company on Water Street, into up to 200 new apartments.
Neighbors gathered at New Light High School Wednesday night for a listening session with the developer, Randy Salvatore of RMS Companies. He has an option to buy the factory to advance his third planned project — his third in the city undergoing a gold rush-like building boom.
Salvatore has made listening to neighbors, trying to incorporate their suggestions and addressing their concerns before he puts together a proposed project design a part of his strategy for building successful projects. That worked in the Dwight/ Chapel West neighborhood; it hit a bump Tuesday night when he encountered opposition from neighbors for a proposed project in the Hill.
At Wednesday night’s Wooster Square meeting, Salvatore received a more positive reception from neighbors than he did Tuesday night. And he received lots of suggestions, which he promised to take seriously.
“It makes no sense for us to go down a path and try to design a building and then bring it back to the neighbors and then have the neighbors say, ‘Why did you do this, why did you do that?’ It’s a better process, from my experience, for us to listen to you then go back and draw up some plans then bring them back to you and say what do you think,” he said.
Salvatore’s loose vision for the site includes a renovation of three historically significant buildings, which would be home to 90 to 110 loft-style apartments; tearing down the former press room and another newer building to make way for possibly another 100 units. But he said none of that is in stone yet. Wooster Square has been among the hottest new markets in New Haven for builders looking to construct new apartment complexes (though not condos), with two other large projects in the works. The historically Italian-American neighborhood has also become a haven for young professionals and hipsters in recent years.
Bev McClure (pictured center) asked Salvatore Wednesday night to consider four goals as he plans the site: attract more permanent residents; keep the historic character; create practical retail like a pharmacy; and do it before everyone in the room dies.
McClure praised Salvatore’s plans to preserve the historic buildings and build new structures in keeping with the neighborhood. “We need retail that people can walk to … not tattoo parlors,” she added. Several neighbors said they’d like to see another grocery like the former Cavaliere’s Market on Wooster Street.
Anstress Farwell, president of the New Haven Urban Design League, pointed out that Wooster Square is one of the city’s most diverse neighborhoods in terms of age, race and income. She suggested the new development continue through a partnership with a not-for-profit builder like Neighborhood Housing Services to develop affordable housing on a portion of the property, on Brown Street.
That didn’t sit well with McClure, who raised concern that “affordable housing” would mean low-income housing, which she said brings blight. “The city’s already not doing a beautiful job of taking care of what it has now,” she said.Brett Hoover, who works as a digital strategist for New Haven Promise, urged his neighbors to think more broadly about the issue of affordable housing. He pointed out that New Haven Promise scholars often finish school and want to return to the city, but can’t afford a place to live.“These are students who would love to move back to the city but they’re not seeing, from a landing point right out of college, how they can come back,” he said. “The kids that do come back, a lot of them wind up living in the home with their parents, and it’s not necessarily conducive to a career launch. I would like to see an opportunity for these kinds of kids, even if it’s a little bit smaller unit. If somehow it could be affordable so that they can blend back into where they’re from because they’ve really bought into returning and seeing this through.”
Not everybody was sold on the idea of another residential development. Tony Kosloski (pictured) said the city needs jobs more than it needs more places to live, and suggested that Salvatore pursue a light industrial use for the site rather than more apartments. He said adding another 150 to 200 people to an already high density community would clog traffic and create parking mayhem.
Paul Bass Photo
C. Cowles’ shop floor before the closing.
Salvatore said he is pursing a residential development because that is what the market will bear. He pointed out that C. Cowles moved to a newer, better designed building in suburban North Haven.
He said he is planning to contain all parking on the site, and provide some underground space. Every resident will have a space, Salvatore said, though he expects some won’t own cars.
Kosloski said that would not be enough to accommodate residents who have two cars, and their guests during peak times would only add to the traffic problems that the neighborhood experiences from popular neighborhood restaurants.
“I think the feedback is all things we can address,” Salvatore said after the meeting.
If you live in Wooster Square and have two cars you're not doing it right, seriously. After all, Wooster Square is the Brooklyn of Connecticut:
https://www.thrillist.com/entertainment/nation/hipster-neighborhoods-the-brooklyn-of-every-state
Provide 0.5 or 0.75 spaces per unit, some indoor bike storage, a couple Zipcar spaces, and you're good, seriously. If you do 1 space per unit, don't include the parking fee in the rent and let tenants opt in. You could then probably find some monthly park'ers among those of us who live in the neighborhood and don't currently have off-street parking.
I'd be happy to have 20% affordable housing on that site (particularly if you could do affordable 2 and 3 bedroom units). One thing advocates seem to miss, however, is that there's a limited pot of affordable housing dollars in the state. When New Haven requires a developer to include affordable housing, we're not increasing the affordable housing pie, we're just shifting the dollars from one development (and maybe one town) to another. The real question we should be asking is where affordable housing should go. Because the pot of money is limited and it's not going to grow any more. And rents in New Haven aren't high enough to support cross-subsidization of affordable units without any government subsidy.