Thomas Breen photos
Liam Brennan (right) with Keith and Yolanda Harper talking through ...
... fewer empty lots, more housing, on Starr Street.
Keith Harper can still remember the three-family house that stood a few doors down from his own family’s Starr Street home. It’s now a vacant city-owned lot.
Mayoral challenger Liam Brennan visited Harper’s Newhallville block to make his pitch for why a house should be standing there again today — and what rules need to be changed to make that denser land-use vision a reality.
Brennan, a Westville resident and former legal aid attorney and federal proseuctor, is one of a handful of challengers looking to unseat Mayor Justin Elicker this municipal election year. He’s also the only other Democrat besides Elicker to have made it onto the Sept. 12 primary ballot, after the registrar of voters rejected signature petitions submitted by fellow Democratic challengers Shafiq Abdussabur and Tom Goldenberg.
So far this campaign season Brennan has put at the center of his bid for office a call for the city to do more to create new housing. That build-build-build-adjacent approach, when paired with stricter housing code enforcement, is key to mitigating the current crises around housing affordability and homelessness, he has argued.
Brennan on Anthony Street: Time to "zone up."
On Wednesday, Brennan’s campaign released its latest policy brief, a six-page “Livable Cities Agenda,” that details some of the mayoral hopeful’s top housing-related priorities.
They include approaching housing “with a racial equity and economic justice lens,” boosting investment in the city’s rental code inspection and landlord licensing programs, and strengthening tenants unions by, in part, allowing them to file joint complaints with the Fair Rent Commission.
Also on that housing-policy-priority list is a pitch to “zone up” — that is, to change the city’s land-use regulations to make it easier to build more, denser housing across New Haven.
“One of the major hurdles standing in the way of affordable housing is our city’s zoning laws,” Brennan’s policy paper reads. “Some zoning regulations were helpful in the emerging industrial city – it makes sense not to let a tannery or chemical factory locate next to a school. Today, however, we understand the serious negative effects of the zoning regulations that have been piled and layered on top of each other – including heightened racial segregation, underused land, increased greenhouse emissions, and more.”
The agenda document continues: “As detailed in a wide array of public policy papers — including Elm City Communities’ Breaking Ground report — parking, side yard, backyard, stairwell, and setback requirements all increase the cost of housing. The separation of uses prevents housing from being built atop commercial space. Oversized streets limit the space allowed for housing. All of this increases housing costs and reduces New Haveners’ chances of having affordable places to live. Changing our zoning rules will make housing more affordable and increase the overall health of our city.”
Click here to read Brennan’s paper in full.
12 Anthony St.: If this burned down, it couldn't be rebuilt as of right.
On Wednesday morning, Brennan gave this reporter a biking tour of Westville and Newhallville to illustrate the importance of one key zoning change he’d push for if mayor to promote the development of more housing: that is, reducing the minimum lot size required for new housing to be built.
The minimum lot size in residential zones across the city is currently 4,000 square feet. That’s down from previous minimum lot area requirements of between 5,400 and 7,500 square feet, which the Elicker administration and the Board of Alders succeeded in pushing downward with a housing-minded zoning reform passed in October 2021.
Brennan argued over the course of Wednesday’s biking tour that that minimum lot area needs to be reduced even further. Much further.
The first stop of the tour was 12 Anthony St., a single-family house that was built in the 1930s and that sits on a roughly 3,500 square-foot lot in Upper Westville.
“It’s illegal to build any type of house” on this lot under the zoning rules as they exist today, Brennan said, because the lot is considered too small under the minimum-lot-area requirement. Same goes for the single-family house right next door at 18 Anthony St.
“Under our rules, both of these homes are illegal. That’s insane.”
If either of these houses burned down in a fire, he said, the owners would not be able to build the exact same structures in the exact same spots without getting zoning relief.
“This is not too dense,” Brennan said about the single-family-house-lined block. “We need to change these rules” so that houses like these — or multi-family houses — can be built more easily on lots of this size.
12 and 18 Anthony.
Brennan said he picked 12 Anthony St. to highlight because that property was also called out in the housing authority’s recent “Breaking Ground” report. (The relevant section of that report reads: “This single-family home was built in 1938 in Westville. The lot size is smaller than the city’s minimum lot size of 4,000 square feet, so it would be illegal to build this home (or any home) on this lot today. It is in a part of Westville that is zoned for middle density, but even though it is legal to have multi-family homes in that zone, the zoning code’s 3,500 square feet lot-size-per-dwelling-unit restriction would prevent this home from adding any more units. This means that the homeowner can not divide it into two (or three, or four) homes even if no element of the home changed externally. The building also covers more of the lot than the 30% permissible within the zoning – the building would have to be smaller to be built again.”)
How low does Brennan think the city’s minimum lot area requirement should go?
“I’m flexible,” Brennan replied.
He noted that the housing authority recommended a minimum lot area of 1,400 square feet in its “Breaking Ground” report. That sounds like a reasonable number to consider. (Again, to quote from the relevant section of the housing authority’s report: “The city should immediately shrink its minimum lot size requirements to 1,400 square feet citywide. While the city mandates minimum lot sizes for any new or modified construction, more than 4,500 residential lots are already below the city’s minimum requirements (a rough map of those properties is available here). These homes are not unusable – in fact, they’re disproportionately located on some of the city’s most welcoming and pleasant streets. The purpose of the minimum lot size restrictions is unclear and the restrictions themselves are unnecessary.”)
Next stop on the minimum-lot-size-craziness tour: 460 Central Ave.
Another single-family Westville house. Another lot size of roughly 3,500 square feet.
“There’s no way you can look at this and say” this is too dense, Brennan said. Again, if this house burned down, it couldn’t be rebuilt as is as of right. “This is crazy. That makes no sense.”
“Changing these rules unlocks the ability to develop housing that’s naturally affordable on empty lots around the city,” he argued. (Click here and here to read about recent land-use initiatives pitched by the Elicker administration, including rezoning Long Wharf to promote denser development along the city’s industrial waterfront and creating a new “land bank.”)
212 Starr.
After stops in Edgewood Park to look at an overgrown ex-soccer field and Butler Street to look at a half-done speed bump, Brennan made his way to Starr Street in Newhallville to look at some of those empty lots he was referring to.
The vacant lot at 212 Starr St. is owned by the city and, Brennan pointed out, is less than 4,000 square feet large. That means that new housing can’t be built here as of right. Changing the minimum lot size requirement could make it easier for this property to be built up, either by the city or by a private developer courted by the city.
Same goes for the vacant city-owned lot at 261 Starr. In addition to reducing the minimum lot area requirement, Brennan said, he’d like to see the city more “actively reach out to” builders and make “construction a priority” at lots like these. The city needs to be doing all it can to make sure that these lots are used for more productive uses like housing, instead of just sitting empty.
Keith and Yolanda Harper agreed.
Keith and Yolanda Harper: "All I want to see is the community vibrant again."
The Newhallville couple sat on folding chairs on the sidewalk in front of Keith’s childhood home two houses away from the empty lot.
“I’ve been a resident of this neighborhood” for nearly 60 years, Keith said. He said this stretch of Newhallville used be bustling with local businesses, with a pharmacy on nearly every block. And, where there are vacant lots now, three-family and four-family houses.
He pointed at the vacant lots on the block, recalling the apartments and houses that used to stand there in decades past.
“Some units should be put over there” again, he said about the vacant lots. “Houses, yeah, we’d love to see that. Community gardens are nice…”
“But people can’t live there,” Brennan said.
“All I want to see is the community vibrant again,” Keith added.
Yolanda agreed. But, she added, “the thing is about building homes, it’s got to be for affordable living.” Too much new residential construction downtown is for apartments that are way above most New Haveners’ price ranges, she said.
“If they’re not on RAP or Section 8,” Keith said, “they’re out the game.”
After talking for a bit longer about everything from tree cover on the block to making sure neighborhood youth have safe places to spend their time, the Harpers made their way back inside their Starr Street home — but not before Keith promised to consider voting for Brennan when the primary comes around. “I can see you’re not afraid of a good neighbor,” he said with a smile.
Wow I thought my vote was settled elsewhere but thinking about changing to Brennan after reading this. An endorsement of the housing authority's recommended lot size would settle the matter for me.