Adventures In Redistricting: Chapel Trade Supported; Fair Haven Shifts Rebuffed

Ward 6 is on the move — as Hill Alder Carmen Rodriguez eyes a likely expansion north to an apartment-rich stretch of Chapel Street. 

While Ward 14 appears stuck — as Fair Haven Alder Sarah Miller tries and tries, so far in vain, to negotiate a more coherent shape to her three-neighborhood, river-straddling district.

That’s where matters stand for now, at least, as a once-a-decade redrawing of New Haven’s local political maps continues.

A dozen alders gathered in the Aldermanic Chamber on the second floor of City Hall Tuesday evening for the latest step in that process, haggling over street boundaries and ward shapes during the most recent meeting of the Special Committee on Ward Redistricting.

The local legislators have until the end of May to vote on a new map for the city’s 30 wards, with the goal of evenly spreading out New Haven’s 134,023 residents, as counted in the latest U.S. Census.

Committee Chair and Hill Alder Evelyn Rodriguez said that the committee should have a draft map available on the city website soon after May 2, after the alders spend the upcoming weekend walking new potential district boundaries in person. 

Members of the public will then have an opportunity to weigh in on proposed new ward lines during the committee’s next public hearing on May 10. The full Board of Alders plans to take the matter up for a final debate and vote on May 23. 

The committee alders didn’t take any votes on Tuesday. The conversations and negotiations that ensued — amongst alders who are now four meetings in to the months-long redistricting process — revealed just how close New Haven’s new political lines are to taking shape. (Click here to view the current boundaries for the city’s 30 wards.)

Ward 6 Looks North

Take the potential agreement struck between Carmen Rodriguez and Eli Sabin, for example.

Rodriguez represents Ward 6, which spans parts of the Hill, City Point, Long Wharf, the 9th Square, and Wooster Square. 

Her ward currently has 3,595 residents. That’s well below the per-ward range of 4,243 to 4,690 residents that the alders are shooting for this round of redistricting. 

Sabin, meanwhile, represents Ward 7, which covers parts of downtown, Wooster Square, and East Rock. At 5,171 residents, his ward is currently one of the most populous in the city.

On Tuesday, the two stood side by side before a color-coded draft map — put together by city tech whiz Jacob Conshick, and projected on a large digital monitor. 

That draft map showed Rodriguez’s Ward 6 jumping across Chapel Street between Orange Street and Olive Street. 

If approved, that northward shift would mean that the 32-story apartment tower at 360 State St. would move from Sabin’s ward and into Rodriguez’s. The line change would also give Rodriguez local political domain over the surface parking lot at 78 Olive St., where the Philadelphia-based developer PMC plans on building 136 more apartments.

This is ​“Hill to Downtown” in action, Rodriguez said about her ward’s potential expansion to these two Chapel Street blocks, citing the years-long multi-pronged effort to reconnect parts of the city separated by the disappearing Route 34 Connector. ​“It’s connecting all our folks together.”

“Ward 7 needed to give some to Ward 6,” Sabin noted, since his ward’s population grew so much over the past decade, and since Rodriguez’s ward lost a significant number of residents. ​“That’s just the way the cookie crumbled.”

On the East Rock end of Ward 7, however, Sabin’s district lines are slated to expand — from their current boundary on Trumbull Street to as far north as Cottage Street between Livingston Street and Whitney Avenue.

According to the draft map discussed on Tuesday, those and other potential line changes would in the end whittle Ward 7’s population from 5,171 down to 4,663 residents. 

They would also would bump Ward 6’s population from 3,595 up to 4,560.

Earlier in the evening, as she talked through another set of potential street swaps with Conshick and fellow Hill Alder Evelyn Rodriguez from Ward 4, Carmen Rodriguez told her colleague not to worry about the downtown edge of her district. ​“Ward 7, he’s solid with me,” she said about her negotiations with Sabin. ​“We don’t have to worry about that.”

What About Ward 14?

On the eastern side of the map, meanwhile, first-term Ward 14 Alder Sarah Miller encountered a bit more trouble ironing out the lines of her Fair Haven district.

Currently, Ward 14 sits mostly on the eastern side of the Fair Haven peninsula, extending from Ferry Street on the west to Grafton Street on the north to the Quinnipiac River on the east and south.

Then the ward jumps across the river, to include a sliver of Quinnipiac Avenue in Fair Haven Heights as well as Fairmont and Farren Avenues in the Annex.

On Tuesday, just as in previous redistricting meetings, Miller sought to find a way to consolidate her ward boundaries on the Fair Haven side of the river.

“The more that we have coherence and alignment between wards and neighborhoods, the more effective we can be at solving problems,” she argued. ​“In New Haven, we usually work together through neighborhoods.”

While leaving the Heights and Annex portions in her ward would not be the end of the world, Miller said, ​“it would be an improvement” to better align the ward boundaries with how the Fair Haven, Heights, and Annex neighborhoods are actually shaped.

Miller told Conshick that Alder Rosa Ferraro-Santana from Fair Haven Heights’ Ward 13 had expressed interest in taking over the Quinnipiac Avenue section of Ward 14. Because of district-boundary requirements that wards be contiguous, getting rid of Quinnipiac Avenue from Ward 14 would also necessitate Miller’s district dropping its Annex portion.

“So now you are down by 1,001 people” if Ward 14 dropped its Heights and Annex sections, Conshick noted.

The only way to make up for that loss would be to pull in area — and roughly 600 people — from the Fair Haven wards adjacent to Ward 14 to the north and west: that is, Wards 15 and 16.

That proved a challenge Tuesday night, because Ward 15 Alder Ernie Santiago and Ward 16 Alder Jose Crespo weren’t interested in losing any of their turf.

Are there any blocks just west of Ferry you would be comfortable losing? Miller asked Crespo.

Moving that area out of his ward ​“doesn’t make sense,” Crespo said. ​“Especially because at the bottom, I have constituents who have supported me for years. It just doesn’t make sense to give that up. I don’t think the trade-off makes sense at this time.”

What about north of Grafton Street? Miller asked Santiago.

“I’m good with what I’ve got,” Santiago replied.

Crespo pointed out that he had already negotiated certain street trades with Ward 8’s Ellen Cupo, potentially landing him all of River Street and Criscuolo Park in a potential new drawing of the map. Crespo said giving away eastern edges of his ward would necessitate his own ward expanding further into Cupo’s, which he hasn’t negotiated.

“I can understand not having the cross-river boundary,” Conshick said about Miller’s proposal. But without taking roughly 600 people from Wards 15 and 16, the numbers in her plan won’t work.

Plus, he said, the Wards 14, 15, and 16 are all currently ​“compliant,” at least in the draft map discussed Tuesday.

“The key word you said is that we are already in compliance,” Santiago said.

Santiago urged Miller to drop her effort. ​“We are wasting time,” he said. ​“My ward is good the way it is.”