Laura Glesby Photo
Nicole Davis and Patrick Li muse about a divided New Haven.
What should be preserved about today’s New Haven in 2034?
“I want the community feel back,” said Angela Hatley, who joined 60 other city residents to brainstorm visions for the city’s future alongside urban planners.
Those residents filled the cafeteria of High School in the Community on Thursday evening to offer input on the city’s forthcoming “Comprehensive Plan” for the next decade.
The city is required to compile a set of urban planning priorities — such as zoning considerations, transportation improvements, and climate resiliency goals — in a Comprehensive Plan every 10 years. In theory, the plan is intended to serve as a reference document for the Board of Alders and boards such as the City Plan Commission as they make decisions about land use.
The current plan, “Vision 2025,” was adopted by the Board of Alders in 2015 and is slated to be replaced by a yet-to-be-drafted “Vision 2034” plan.
The City Plan Department hosted the first of six public input sessions for this forthcoming plan on Thursday, collaborating with the Hartford-based consulting firm FHI Studios.
There, constituents from across the city discussed big-picture questions about their dreams for the city’s future in small groups, generating a broad array of priorities for the planners to consider.
At one table of about 10 people, the question “What would you like to preserve about New Haven?” prompted a discussion about how urban planners might be able to foster stronger neighbor-to-neighbor connections.
Hatley, a longtime Hill resident, reiterated that she no longer senses a long-term commitment to the neighborhood from many of her neighbors in the southern section of the Hill.
“There is no sense of community where I live,” she said. “Everyone is transient. They come for six months.”
Hatley argued that this weaker sense of community has led people to live with less concern for one another’s comfort and safety — perhaps contributing to the use of loud illegal dirt bikes near her home, an issue she’s often decried at Hill South management team meetings.
“I feel like as a nation, we’ve moved away from neighborliness,” said Downtown resident Patrick Li. They argued that a growing sense of disconnectedness from neighbors has less to do with individual personalities and more to do with larger-scale trends and barriers.
Hatley nodded. “Social media affects that a lot,” driving people to spend more time online and less time forging face-to-face connections, she said.
Kevin Rivera, who facilitated the table’s discussion on behalf of FHI Studios, suggested one possible remedy that urban planners could implement: investing in “Third Places,” a term for communal gathering spots like cafes or community centers that exist outside of home and work (or school).
When the group assented, Rivera jotted down “third places” onto a giant notepad of ideas for the city’s future.
Angela Hatley (center) with Sarah McIver and Sam Samdani — loving New Haven's food but worrying about the future of its community culture, and the availability of parking spots.
Six of these parallel discussion groups collectively brainstormed hundreds of priorities, concerns, and ideas about New Haven’s future, ranging from more job opportunities for teens to lower taxes to improved bus infrastructure.
A few themes recurred. Many called for more affordable housing, more homeownership opportunities, and more repercussions for absentee landlords. Many called for stronger bike, pedestrian, and traffic calming infrastructure.
At Hatley, Li, and Rivera’s table, the conversation returned again and again to a divide between two New Havens: one where Yale affiliates tend to live and one where residents are primarily Black and Latino, where smooth sidewalks and green spaces are sparser, where police cars are harder to find.
After Li pointed out that he appreciates how “bikeable and walkable New Haven is,” Fair Haven Heights resident Nicole Davis offered a modification: parts of New Haven are bikeable and walkable.
In her neighborhood, she said, many streets have no sidewalks and cars tend to dominate the road. “The whole eastern side of the city, the sidewalks are bad.”
Li agreed. He examined the paper map of the city laid out on the table and pointed out the sections of town he’s found to be pedestrian and cyclist-friendly to Rivera, who’s based in Hartford. “It’s this green, surrounded by so much wealth,” he said, gesturing to Yale’s campus and the adjacent neighborhoods of East Rock, downtown, and Wooster Square.
The group came to a consensus that litter is a pervasive problem around town, except in the areas around campus.
“Just like the police presence,” interjected Hatley. “Have you ever noticed that?” She said that police tend to be visible around Yale and in wealthier neighborhoods, especially with the Yale Police Department based on campus, and argued that police should be more evenly distributed across the city.
“Up here, where I live in Newhallville, there’s no parks,” noted former alder Steve Winter, who’s serving on the Comprehensive Plan steering committee in his role as the city’s sustainability director.
Rivera jotted down the group’s points on the giant notepad, which Hatley later presented to the entire room. As she relayed the key points, she ad-libbed a little about one of the city’s points of pride right near her home: “We want more diversity in the Long Wharf food trucks.”
A series of polls at the beginning of the meeting revealed that a majority of attendees had lived in New Haven either fewer than 5 years or more than 20 years, and that 57 percent frequently attend public meetings. One question asked whether New Haven should grow incrementally, embrace "significant" change, or stay the same. No one voted that the city should remain as is...
...prompting a burst of laughter and applause from the audience.
This was a productive, well-run, and enjoyable session. But many of the issues raised there do not fall within the ambit of the Comprehensive Plan. The plan provides a framework for future land use decisions. It has little to do with littering or illegal dirt bikes, even though these are real issues.
It was appropriate for Laura to use “in theory”, in describing the plan’s role. While the current plan is thoughtful, it has played very little role in actual land use decisions. When the Board of Alders adopted the current plan nine years ago, they did not systematically amend the zoning ordinance to implement it. I attend land use proceedings regularly. I am hard-pressed to recall a major development application that was denied because it was inconsistent with the plan. (City staff routinely negotiate with developers before they submit their formal applications. But there is generally no record of the extent, if any, an application was modified to make it more consistent with the plan.)
City Plan staff have stressed the need to make the plan relevant to future land use decisions. I do not doubt their sincerity. But the City Plan Commission and Board of Alders need to start thinking about plan implementation sooner rather than later. And the BOA needs to think about how the city can integrate land use policy with other tools, such as tax policy, to promote such goals as housing affordability.