Nora Grace-Flood photo
Five new apartments coming to Artist & Craftsman upstairs?
The vacant second floor above a Chapel Street arts supply shop may soon become an empty canvas for developers and renters to fill — as a plan to convert the space into five new apartments advances.
The owner of 813 Chapel St., an affiliate of Pike International, is proposing to convert the second-floor commercial space atop Artists and Craftsman Supply into five new apartments.
On Tuesday night, the Board of Zoning Appeals (BZA) heard an application by landlord-hired attorney Ben Trachten seeking a special exception to allow zero off-street parking spaces where five are required and zero loading spaces where one is required for the creation of five new apartments in that second-floor downtown space on Chapel between Church and Orange Streets.
The BZA referred the requested zoning relief to the City Plan Commission, which in turn gave a recommendation of approval during its own meeting on Wednesday night.
Trachten said during Tuesday’s BZA meeting that because the arts store takes up the entire lot on which it is situated, “there’s simply no way to accommodate parking and loading” for planned new apartments.
According to the zoning books, five parking spots and one loading space are mandated for the residential conversion. But, Trachten argued, the site’s proximity to bus routes and transit lines like the State Street train station as well as nearby parking lots should exempt the project from parking requirements.
The project was then heard by the City Plan Commission on Wednesday.
Nora Grace-Flood photo
“It’s a busy commercial district,” Commissioner Adam Marchand said on Wednesday. “It’s worth noting that the residential density in the area is about to be increased,” he added. He was referring to a now under-construction plan to build 166 apartments across 848, 842, and 812 Chapel St.
“But given the track record of this commission in terms of how it views dense residential development downtown, we’ve generally been supportive,” he reflected. “Given that it’s downtown and given our track record, I’m comfortably advising ‘yes.’”
City Plan Commission Chair Leslie Radcliffe agreed. “We’re talking five units, we’re talking downtown… there’s plenty of public transportation and there’s also parking in the neighborhood,” she reasoned.
The commission ultimately put forward a unanimous favorable recommendation.
The BZA will discuss and vote on whether to grant the developer parking relief at its next meeting. Trachten will then return to the City Plan Commission to seek standard site plan approval.
Once all the necessary approvals are granted, the conversion and any related construction are expected to take six months.
In the zoning relief application, Trachten details the scope of the planned commercial-to-residential conversion, as well as the site’s history of similar such requests.
“The relief requested in this application is for the sole purpose of converting the second floor from vacant commercial space to 5 residential apartments,” Trachten wrote. “This property has an extensive zoning and site plan history going back to 2013. The applicant previously obtained approval for 8 residential units on the second and third floors. Prior to the expiration of all approvals, the applicant constructed the third floor as 4 residential apartments but did not convert the second floor. The Board of Zoning Appeals has previously granted greater relief than the relief requested herein for parking, specifically to allow zero parking spaces where 8 were required. Due to a change in the zoning ordinance over the years, the required parking load has decreased from 1 space per unit to 1/2 space per unit, making the requested relief less intense than what has previously been granted. As to the loading space relief, there is no space on site to accommodate a loading space.”
Parking requirements are a tax on people who don't have cars. They dramatically raise the price of housing. It's crazy that New Haven still has them, especially in the areas in and near downtown.
Hartford, like many other US cities, has eliminated parking requirements citywide.
https://usa.streetsblog.org/2017/12/13/hartford-eliminates-parking-minimums-citywide/