Yale Will Build On Broadway

This is mind-boggling. That lot is the only parking in the Broadway area. Adding more retail and housing in an already dense location just doesn't make sense. Not to mention the construction which is sure to be a nightmare.

@NHI -- please don't call this new apartment building a "dorm".

Fwiw, the City of New Haven defines a dorm as a building with shared bathrooms and no kitchens. This new building is not a dorm, and the apartments should go on the property tax rolls. (Yale-owned grad student apartments are not integral to a graduate student's education.)

The bigger question is whether the City will start taxing the Swing Space, once it is converted from undergraduate housing to 100 graduate student apartments, complete with newly installed full kitchens. By law those converted apartments should go on the tax rolls, but as we all know, the City too often allows Yale to call its own shots.

Does anyone know if it will be tax exempt or not?

People are worried about the tax-exemption status of this building, but they are missing a crucial point-
The floors of retail should be taxable and will be paying far more in taxes than the current parking lot.

Even if the upper floor end up being tax free, this building is going to contribute far more to the tax rolls than the parking lot ever did.

@Pedro
True it will be contributing to the tax base more than the parking lot did, but it will be a much greater burden on the services the city provides than the parking lot ever was.
So, should it receive tax exemptions just because it is Yale? I think not. Avg. taxpayer is right on, tax the whole building. All the apartments in East Rock's "Grad Ghetto" have to pay taxes, so should Yale.

fact alert:

Yale could provide housing, tax free, for all of its 7000+ students LEGALLY, if they chose to do so. If you think its right or wrong, thats a different story, but its certainly out of New Haven's hands. In fact many of Yale's peer institutions do just this, with no legal ramifications. Should Yale promote its students living in the city? Yes! and it does

Many dorms for undergraduates have private bathrooms and kitchens, this does not change the definition of a 'dorm' in the eyes of the tax code.

This housing is replacing HGS housing. 300 beds -> 110 beds. This means more students will be looking for housing and contributing to properties paying taxes in new haven.

The taxes on a 2 story retail property will certainly be more than a parking lot.

so in summation:
1) There is no legal basis to charge taxes on these apartments. Period.


2) Most students will continue to live in houses with pretty high rents that continue to increase, if this dorm opens or not. Even more students will be looking for housing in the city.

3) New Haven gets more taxes from this development, one small brick in staving off other tax payers from the burden of increases


Just my $.02.
-A 6 year and going, proud citizen-student of New Haven (except for when my bike gets stolen, which probably wouldnt happen if I locked it up inside a Yale building).

Brian,
Yale is closing the dorms in their Hall of Graduate studies and converting that building to office space and moving those residences over to here. It's actually going to be a net loss of beds in the area.

HGS currently houses 168 students. This building will house 82 with the balance moving to Swing Space.

The net change to the city and this area is ZERO. People getting riled up over this do not have their facts straight.

Because this is a net increase in non-taxable space (but also an ADDITION OF TAXABLE SPACE), the city will actually get more PILOT payments as a result of this as well. So the end result of this change will be more funds to the city in terms of property tax and PILOT, more retail in the hottest retail area in the city, and more density by building out a parking lot.

I wonder how this is going to effect Broadway? Oh yeah. That reminds me, I thought that Broadway was suppose to be getting a new "make over." About two years ago there's been some words and a few ways to redesign the Broadway District. If you ask me, I think the Broadway redesign should get the "green light." >> QUESTION: Does anyone else thinks that the huge median full of parking spaces that sits in the middle of Broadway just takes up too much space?? Oh yeah. Not to mention that dangerous and ridiculous intersection that's right near it. I feel that if that plan gets done then Broadway will be heading in the right direction, and then it will be well on its way to being a district of mix-use development and then that will make the area even more attractive for people who are new to the city, Yale students, and New Haven residents. By the way, Apartments should be much bigger in high populated areas.

And what happened to the concern about 2 floors of retail? Just do a revote and people forget about it?

ADAK, City Plan staff recommends, the board decides. Even though I think Tom Talbot was right, he doesn't get a vote.

Will the city at least allow us to vote on the city name change when Yale has it changed to "The City of Yale New Haven" then Yale will officially become a municipality and we can just pay our taxes to them directly. The city doesn't pay taxes on its property obviously and neither does Yale so what's the difference. Oh maybe the transition will go something like this ....

Once upon a time there was a city who didn't tax it's largest property owner. So the city charged all the hard working residents and businesses double until they couldn't afford it anymore and they forclosed on all their properties. Then sold them to a Yale owned quasi non tax paying entity. Well the state and the city got so broke and in debt Yale offered to bail them out with the tax money they never had to pay. The city agreed oh happy day we are saved.....YEAH..... But one day in the not far off future Yale wanted it's money back with interest and no one read the fine print of the contract.... uh oh.... But Yale said fear note for we are fair. You people don't know how to run your city but we do look how big we have grown, powerful and successful let us run your fair city. So the people said NO WAY !!! Then Yale said read the fine print the city is ours and all you people are now residents of YALE NEW HAVEN !!!! PAY UP OR WE WILL TAKE YOUR PROPERTY !!! So after the few that still cared spent the last money the city had fighting the Yale Monster realized it was an exercise in futility they too took their sweet Yale deal and sold us down the river.

So what's the moral of my story.... WAKE UP NEW HAVEN, YALE HAS BEEN AND WILL CONTIINUE TO SELL YOU MAGIC BEANS FOR YOUR LIFE GIVING COW... YALE HAS ITS OWN POLICE FORCE THAT WILL MERGE WITH THE CITY'S.... you thought Tamany Hall was bad just wait. You don't know how bad you have it until the next dictator takes over. Don't believe me look at Iraq and other countries. Read your history the dark storm clouds have been forming are you ready for it..

Time for a change,

I have an old painting, which NHI doesn't allow a simple way to publish here, that is of the Broadway Triangle, with my erstwhile alter-ego, Little Miss Mess-Up face to face with the Yale Bulldog, fighting on the sidewalk over a 'pig in a blanket' from the defunct Yankee Doodle.

In the background, with the Broadway wrecking , is a sign on the triangle that sez "Welcome to Yale, former home of New Haven Connecticut, with a citation of the Bankruptcy code.

This painting is from 2000, and Michael Morand bought a print of it at CWOS (which I am sure is hanging somewhere), because it fit in with the evil agenda, and for whatever duplicitous reason, he thinks is "COOL".

Back to Town Villain for him. No Reservations about that.

Bill thank you, I am glad to know that someone else will acknowledge what is going on in our city. It feels like New Haven is Austria during WW2 and the rest of the world wants peace so they just decided to allow Austria to be annexed by the Germans. New Haven is the front line on for non tax paying collegiate behemoths to take over the cities they bankrupt and occupy all over. At least Hamden has the testicular fortitude r to try to stop it's Sleeping Giant from standing up, Quinnipiac University. Hamden watched what Yale did to New Haven and said no way. All though they may be too late they are trying to stop it.