Clinic’s Parking, Expansion Plan Advances

Fair Haven Community Health Care (FHCHC) is on its way to getting new city approvals to bring more cars to its grounds — as the nonprofit advances towards executing a broader vision of expanding its community healthcare campus on Grand Avenue.

That’s the latest in the Fair Haven-anchoring community health center’s ongoing effort to build a new three-story clinic building next to its current headquarters at 374 Grand Ave.

The health center hasn’t yet introduced or won approval for that broader new-construction project.

Instead, it’s submitted a number of related pitches to the City Plan Commission, the Board of Zoning Appeals, and the Board of Alders that are all designed to allow for that campus expansion to take place — and that all so far have focused on expanding the center’s surface parking lot.

Earlier this month, FHCHC won site plan approval from the City Plan Commission to demolish three Woolsey Street two-family houses — one of which is currently rented out by tenants, another of which is used as health center office space, and another of which is currently empty — so that they can add 10 new surface parking spaces to their lot. The health center has promised to help relocate the existing tenants to new homes once that demolition is complete.

Last week, health center leaders and representative showed up at various City Hall meetings to advocate for still two additional but related proposals that are also related to the center’s parking capacity and that also point towards the eventual goal of constructing a new health care building.

The first such application was heard by the Board of Zoning Appeals on Tuesday and the City Plan Commission on Wednesday. That application seeks special exceptions to allow for transition parking, off-street parking spaces located within the front yard setback, 74 off-street parking spaces where 92 are required, and Coastal Site Plan Review at 81 – 87 Woolsey St. and 362 – 394 Grand Ave. 

The City Plan Commission favorably endorsed that parking relief application and sent it back to the BZA, which should take a final vote on the requested zoning relief next month.

Then, on Thursday, FHCHC President Suzanne Lagarde and clinic-hired attorney Meaghan Miles showed up before the Board of Alders Legislation Committee to support an effort to rezone 81, 83, 85, and 87 Woolsey St. from a high-middle density residential zone (RM‑2) to a mixed-use business zone (BA‑1).

Under the current zoning map, the health center is only able to build parking spaces on a limited section of the property, due to a restriction against ​“front-yard parking” along the sidewalk in RM‑2 zones. So the health care center has applied to the Board of Alders for a zone change affecting those four lots, which would allow them to later submit a site plan expanding parking by another 10 spaces. 

The alders on Thursday favorably recommended that zoning change, even as they questioned the health center’s plans to knock down houses and replace them with parking.

Affordable Healthcare > Affordable Housing?

During their time before the alders on Thursday in support of the requested zoning change, Miles and Lagarde recognized that, while New Haven does sorely need more affordable housing, it also needs expanded access to affordable healthcare. 

And to achieve the latter goal, FHCHC needs to create more places for patients and staff and members of the public to put their cars.

Lagarde and Miles reiterated arguments they’d previously presented before the City Plan Commission and Board of Zoning Appeals in favor of the parking expansion.

The health center’s expansion is urgent, Lagarde argued on Thursday, particularly in light of an uptick in patient visits since the Covid-19 pandemic. 

The center’s current headquarters at 374 Grand Ave. were built in the 1850s, and the exam rooms are ​“so tiny a mother with a carriage, an elder with a walker” find the size ​“challenging,” Lagarde said.

The new building that the center plans to construct on the corner of Grand and James will lead to a net increase in 18 exam rooms, and will add seven new rooms reserved for mental health care. It will feature a ​“food pharmacy,” where residents can access healthy and medically specific foods with the help of a nutritionist, as well as a traditional pharmacy offering medications. And it will include indoor and outdoor community spaces, including meeting rooms, a roof garden, and a ​“pocket park,” for neighbors and community organizations to reserve and use.

Miles noted that the healthcare center has conducted meeting after meeting of community outreach in English and Spanish about the planned expansion. 

She pointed out that federal funding for the expansion has put in place a ​“deed restriction that prohibits any use of the building [and parking lot] beyond clinic use… in perpetuity,” meaning that the federal government will have to approve any efforts to turn the soon-to-be parking lot into a commercial or residential building.

Board of Alders Majority Leader and Amity/Westville Alder Richard Furlow asked Lagarde and Miles about how the rezoning would fit into the city’s broader goals of addressing the affordable housing and climate crises.

“There’s such a push to convert every square inch we have into housing,” he said. That often means repurposing surface parking lots across the city into housing, and not the other way around. 

“We are very aware that this project is taking away affordable housing, and we don’t like it either,” Lagarde answered.

She explained that the health center has sold two Grand Avenue houses to the city to transform into rental units, with the goal of offsetting the loss of the Woolsey Street homes. ​“We wanted to contribute to the affordable housing stock in our community. We don’t take this issue lightly.”

“There is a need for affordable housing,” Miles added, ​“but also a need for affordable healthcare.”

What about putting a parking lot below ground? asked Downtown/East Rock Alder Eli Sabin.

The healthcare center considered both elevated and below-ground parking options, Lagarde said. ​“For the added costs, it was not deemed feasible.”

And what will the parking lot actually look like? asked Furlow.

Lagarde said that a local landscaping firm, TPA Design, has been working on the parking lot plans. 

There will be a ​“landscape buffer all around” the lot assisting with storm drainage, said Miles, as well as signs that explain how the mini-ecosystems work and how passersby can build similar landscapes at their own homes. 

The parking lot will be painted in bright colors, doubling as a reflective surface to reduce heat absorption and mitigate urban heat bubble effects. The lot is both ​“a public art source and a clever way to reduce heat impact,” Miles said.

At night, after the clinic is closed, residents will be able to use the parking lot for free.

When alders turned to deliberate on the requested zoning change, Westville Alder Adam Marchand advocated in favor of the clinic’s request.

“We all had concerns about permanently changing residential areas into parking,” he said. He noted that the zone change ​“facilitates more parking but it also facilitates better access to healthcare for people who need to drive there.”

“We’re very lucky to have Fair Haven Community Health Center in the middle of a dense neighborhood,” said Sabin, before voting alongside his colleagues to favorably recommend the amendment.

The proposed zone change will next go before the full Board of Alders for review and a final vote.

92 Parking Spaces Required; 74 Spaces Sought

That parking and campus-expansion plan came further into focus during Tuesday’s BZA meeting and Wednesday’s City Plan Commission meeting.

Once FHCHC builds its second clinic building, city zoning law would require them to have 92 on-site parking spaces. 

The crew is instead looking for parking relief to allow for 74 spaces, made up of 57 on-site parking spaces as well as a 17-spot lot located at 352 Grand Ave.. The health center has further requested a special exception to construct an additional 10 parking spots to the far front of its on-site parking facing Woolsey Street.

In a Tuesday presentation to the Board of Zoning Appeals, representatives of the clinic analyzed data regarding how clients access the clinic to make their case for increasing on-site parking while simultaneously reducing parking requirements for the clinic.

Attorney Meaghan Miles said that 268 patients participated in a survey which found that 62 percent of patients drive to their appointments at Fair Haven Health, 18 percent of whom park on the street and 44 percent of whom park on site. 

Another 38 percent do not drive. Twenty-seven person of those individuals take public transport, 8 percent walk and 7 percent take rideshares.

Furthermore, 30 percent of all appointments are conducted using telehealth, which Miles said means that many staff and clients no longer go to the clinic in person anymore.

Those statistics, Miles said to the zoning commissioners, ​“are really characteristic of a low-income, urban community.” She said parking relief is justified because FHCHC has a ​“lower parking demand than the typical health center in New Haven,” but that the number of elderly people and families with children who need direct and easy access to the clinic merits expanding the number of parking spots on-site rather than on the street or nearby lots.

To ensure that additional front parking by Woolsey Street has ​“no adverse impact on adjacent residential units,” FHCHC’s written application promises to screen the parking lot on its northern end with newly planted trees.

Eight different members of the public spoke up in favor of the plan and nobody opposed it during Tuesday’s BZA public hearing.

Fair Haven resident, FHCHC patient, and city public schools staffer David Weinreb said he has ​“a deep trust for the thoughtful strategic leadership that has thought through the steps necessary in order to achieve their greater dream.” 

He said FHCHC has gone out of its way to involve the public in their development process, adding that ​“intensive outreach” is ​“just normal for them…. They’re not trying to convince or win,” they’re just ​“invested in bringing people along to create this vision.”

Staff at the clinic noted that elderly patients depend on the ability to walk straight into the clinic without the threat of slipping on snow or ice. They also reiterated what they called the importance of building a community hub to increase healthcare access among in a low-income community.

William Morico, a member of the FHCHC board of directors, said that clients currently find it ​“quicker to find a place [on the street] and walk than try to park behind the clinic,” he said. ​“It speaks to the need for parking.”

FHCHC CEO Suzanne Lagarde told the zoning board that the parking special exceptions were part of ​“an opportunity to finally build a state of the art healthcare facility” in Fair Haven.

The BZA did not discuss the zoning relief requests Tuesday, with the understanding that they would later vote on the matter once they received advice from the City Plan Commission.

On Wednesday, the City Plan Commission unanimously voted to put forward a favorable recommendation encouraging the BZA to grant those special exceptions.

“I recall, as it wasn’t too long ago, speaking in favor of the prior items associated with the project,” Commissioner Adam Marchand said. That conversation, he remembered, found himself and his fellow commissioners agreeing that it would be ​“tremendously beneficial for the Fair Haven neighborhood to have this clinic.”

All four commissioners quickly backed the clinic’s requests. After the BZA takes a vote on all three special exceptions, FHCHC should be able to start seeking site plan approval for the construction of their full expanded campus.