Neighbors Prevail On Peripatetic Pole

A 40-foot utility support pole plunked in the flowerbed at the corner of Wooster and Olive streets will return to its original location across the street, on a block being transformed into a six-story apartment complex. 

The developer who first moved the pole made this promise to Wooster Square neighbors Tuesday evening.

The promise in response to neighborhood complaints.

“It seems clear that the consensus is to leave it on our side,” said Epimoni President Darren Seid.

Epimoni and another New York-based company, Adam America, have taken over a stalled project at 87 Union St. The companies plan to turn the block into 299 apartments, with a line of retail along Olive Street.

Seid explained that the developers had the right to move the brace system that keeps United Illuminating (UI) Pole 6278 upright off their property — and they needed to when they started construction. The new location chosen was a flowerbed that the Downtown-Wooster Square Community Management Team had helped create.

Neighbors were not happy.

Seid talked again with United Illuminating about brace pole options. The electricity company couldn’t move it into the sidewalk adjacent to Olive Street, because the pole needed east-west support.

So Seid returned to the management team with the same two options as before, with a slight modification. The brace pole could stay where it was and the developers would beautify and maintain the community flowerbeds at the intersection. Or, the pole could go back to the developers’ side, into a public plaza the developers were building.

Previously, Seid had argued to the management team that the pole would be a tripping hazard in the middle of the new plaza. In the new design, the brace pole would be closer to the street, on the border of the city sidewalk space, and no longer need approval from the developers.

Seid clearly had a preference for the flowerbed location.

“It would be the only pole and wire on this side of the street. It would be in the middle of the public plaza that we had community engagement to design. The wires would come over to this side of the street and come back,” Seid said. ​“We’re certainly not happy that these are the only options.”

Wooster Square neighbors also had a clear preference for the plaza pole location. The five neighbors who spoke all pushed Seid and his team to work with the pole on their side, perhaps by designing architectural elements, landscaping or benches around it.

“That pole has been there for 20 to 30 years. You didn’t engineer for it and now it’s our fault to make up for. To say it’s the community’s decision is false,” said neighbor Ian Dunn. ​“It’s a done deal.”

Dunn described email chains with more context than Seid presented. Because the flowerbed property owner is the Housing Authority of New Haven/ Elm City Communities, the easement would have to be approved by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Neighbor Anstress Farwell agreed that the choice Seid presented was false. She suggested locating utilities underground as a third option.

“I’m actually concerned that this keeps coming back. I think we’ve been really clear right from beginning. Unless you want to go underground, what’s marked in blue is the only way to go,” Farwell said.

Seid said he would talk with Elm City Communities about when in the construction schedule to move the pole.