Gilad Edelman Photo
DiAdamo: Unusued property is draining church resources.
The Board of Zoning Appeals Tuesday evening rejected a proposal to convert buildings owned by a Wooster Square church into apartments, citing concerns about housing density and increased traffic.
The vote concerned a deal between St. Michael’s, at 29 Wooster Pl., and developer Mod Equities to convert three unused church buildings — a school, a convent, and a gym — into 39 market-rate apartments. Currently, the property is zoned to accommodate only about 15 residences, according to Tom Talbot, the city’s deputy director of zoning.
The applicants and their supporters argued that the deal was necessary to save the church, which has suffered financially as membership has declined over the years.
“We in this community must do all we can to save St. Michael’s,” said Tim Yolen, a lawyer representing the church. If the parish can’t sell the buildings, he continued, “it will close.”
Harry DiAdamo (pictured at top of the story), a member of the church finance committee and one of a few parishioners who spoke in favor of the proposal, conceded that St. Michael’s is “not in the red.” But he called that the cost of maintaining the unused buildings an unsustainable drain on church resources.
The dozen or so neighbors who came to speak in opposition to the project mainly agreed that development is necessary. They objected to the number of proposed apartments, which they said would clash with the neighborhood’s character and generate burdensome traffic on Wooster Square’s narrow streets.
Beverly Carbonella, a parishioner who said she has lived in the neighborhood for 50 years, summed up most of the opposition sentiment.
“I realize there is a problem financially for St. Michael’s church, and I’m sympathetic to it,” she said. “But this is not the appropriate project.”
Another theme was mistrust of the developers. Reading from a prepared statement, Michelle Bonanno (pictured), a fourth-generation parishioner of St. Michael’s, said, “The neighborhood should not be punished to line the pockets of out-of-town developers.”
The developers, brothers Jacob and Joseph Feldman of Lawrence, N.Y., objected to that characterization.
“We’re not absentee New York landlords like we were portrayed tonight,” said Jacob Feldman, noting that their company has been in New Haven for four years.
The brothers said that they will seek more input from the neighborhood in drawing up a new, lower-density proposal to present next month’s board meeting. But they said they are limited by the constraints of the existing buildings, which they can’t tear down because of their historic status.
“With every development you’re dealing with 40,000 square feet, so you have certain fixed costs,” said Jacob Feldman (pictured, left). “If the apartments are too big, then they become too expensive.”
Where will people park when they go to Mass? The St. Michaels property has been sold off over the years, eliminating parking for the church on their property to maybe 30 spaces.