Emily Hays Photo
Protesters round corner Monday from Kensington Playground.
A city-commissioned report concluded that converting Kensington Playground into affordable apartments will not harm the environment. A group of neighbors strongly disagreed and took to the streets Monday to say so.
The Friends Of Kensington Playground handed their written objections to Mayor Justin Elicker in front of City Hall at the end of their march Monday afternoon.
The protest is the latest of the group’s ongoing ninth-inning efforts to stop the mini-park’s conversion to new apartments. It coincided with the release of environmental assessments on both sides of the controversy.
“This is environmental injustice. We are seeing it in real time. The city sees it happening and does not care,” said Josh Randall, a Dwight neighbor and Yale environmental science PhD student who wrote a report released Monday.
Mayor Justin Elicker receives the petition.
The public approvals required for the Kensington Playground conversion are well over. The Board of Alders voted in October overwhelmingly in favor of selling the city park to Boston-based, affordable housing developer The Community Builders (TCB).
Right now, the city is trying to release $250,000 from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) HOME program for the affordable housing project. In the process, the city commissioned an environmental impact study from Fuss & O’Neill, Inc.
The engineering firm found no significant environmental impact. The most significant impact would be more runoff from the new parking lot, which can be addressed in other ways.
The report noted that 80 to 95 percent of the immediate neighbors to the park are nonwhite; the same proportion are low-income.
“However, the proposed project will not result in any adverse effects to the low-income and minority populations, and will benefit the residents of the project site by providing quality, affordable housing for low-income families,” the report said.
The city promised to consider public comment on the impact study before asking for the HOME grant, so Friends Of Kensington Playground sent in a huge stack of letters. They handed those letters to Mayor Justin Elicker at City Hall. Elicker smiled and told them what he has before — now that the Friends are suing the city to try to stop the land sale, he can’t comment on the issue.
Josh Randall: These trees are better for the environment than new ones.
Where Fuss & O’Neill found no environmental injustice in the park sale, the Friends Of Kensington Playground see plenty. (Read the objections here, here and here.)
The project involves a series of park swaps. The playground will become an apartment building and parking lot. TCB promises to build a smaller park on Garden Street and improve an existing park at Day Street.
Randall made two main environmental arguments.
The first: Kensington Playground as it is now has mature maple and walnut trees that store carbon well. Much of that carbon — 40 percent, Randall said — gets released as soon as those trees get cut down. The dogwood and crab apple trees planned for the replacement play space just recycle carbon by storing it in fruit and releasing it later. In 30 years, the new trees would likely store a mere 1/30 the amount of carbon that it does now.
Randall’s second argument is that if the sea level rises half a meter with global warming in the next couple of decades, much of Edgewood Park would be destroyed. That would leave the western side of New Haven without significant park land or tree cover.
The city should be trying to add more park space, not destroying it, the protesters argued.
“Children’s access to open space and a playground is essential for their health and well-being,” wrote Yale Environmental Health Sciences professor Robert Dubrow in another letter the group released, noting a recent kid’s biking event at the park.
The protesters, next to Day Street Park.
In addition, TCB would own the replacement play space instead of the city. The city does own 1319 Chapel St, the park at the intersection of Day and Chapel streets, according to the New Haven land assessment database. Neighbors are concerned that private park ownership will make some neighbors feel unwelcome and give them less decision-making power and ownership over the park.
The city is required to develop other vacant parcels as parks. However, neighbors are concerned that these parks will be beyond walking distance.
Neighbors also learned from the environmental assessment released by the city that only seven of the 15 affordable units will be net new units. Eight of the 15 will be replacements of existing apartments, to make up for apartments on Beers Street that TCB is donating to a local nonprofit for affordable homeownership development.
“They are destroying our park for a mere seven units. That’s news to me,” said Friends Of Kensington Playground member Jane Comins.
The Community Builders, Inc.
Planned new apartment complex to be built atop Kensington Playground.
Emily Hays Photo
Current playground.
It is nice that they have 'favorable' Environmental Impact Statement -- it's the law.
But everybody knows you get what you pay for based on who is paying.
Unfortunately, favorable or not, the EIS has little impact on what happens in 'development world'. It's always a 'pass through'.
Just like public testimony at an alder hearing....
Just like job postings where the candidate has been pre-selected.
Just like public art where the candidate is pre-selected.....
Following 'the process' is just that -- a 'requirement'.
It never has a real impact on the end result.
Everything is Pre-Selected!
It's gross.