Thomas Breen photo
High at Elm: Slated to become Yale-controlled ped plaza.
A deal for Yale to increase voluntary payments to the city by $52 million over the next six years — and design, convert, and control a publicly owned pedestrian plaza on High Street — has taken its first formal step towards potential approval, in the form of a package of legislation newly submitted by the mayor to the Board of Alders.
That so-called “communication” is included on the agenda for Tuesday night’s full Board of Alders meeting.
The submission marks the first formal step in the legislative approval process for a proposed Yale-city deal first announced at a celebratory City Hall press conference on Nov. 17.
Members of the Yale and city negotiating teams in November.
The deal marks the culmination of a year’s worth of negotiations between the university and the Elicker Administration, as led by city-tapped lead negotiator Henry Fernandez and Yale Senior Vice-President Jack Callahan.
Now that the proposed deal has been submitted to the Board of Alders as a communication, it will next receive a public hearing by at least one aldermanic committee (and, likely, the City Plan Commission) before returning to the city legislature later this year for further debate, potential amendments, and a final vote.
Click here and here for previous articles about the proposed deal.
Click here, here, here, and here for the documents included in Tuesday’s aldermanic submission.
At the center of the proposed legislation is a Nov. 17 letter written by Yale University President Peter Salovey to Mayor Justin Elicker and Board of Alders President Tyisha Walker-Myers.
The legislative communication also includes a cover letter written by Elicker to Walker-Myers on Jan. 10 in support of the proposed deal.
“As an anchor institution and the largest employer in New Haven, the university is proud to do its part in building a community that creates sustained inclusive growth across every neighborhood in the city,” Salovey wrote in his Nov. 17 letter. “New Haven is poised for accelerated growth with additional funding from the federal government, the state, and the university, as well as increased private investment in residential and commercial properties. New Haven’s expanding population and its support for innovation will continue to position the city for a bright future.”
Elicker is similarly bullish in his Jan. 10 letter to Walker-Myers.
“In no uncertain terms, this is an historic moment in our relationship with the University, which has contributed in many ways to the City,” Elicker wrote in that cover letter. “With today’s announcement, the University has committed to contribute more financially over the next six years than it has over the last 20 combined. This funding, in addition to the creation of the Center for Inclusive Growth, will help the city make more investments in the New Haven community, continue to stabilize our financial footing, and improve opportunities for residents.”
$10M Annual Bump; High St. Conversion; Sliding Scale Property Taxes For New Acquisitions; "Center For Inclusive Growth"
City of New Haven chart
Estimates of Yale payments to the city between FY22 and FY27.
As described in Elicker’s and Salovey’s letters, the proposed deal would include:
• An increase in Yale’s voluntary payment to the city by $10 million for each of the next five years, and by $2 million in the final year of the deal, which is Fiscal Year 2026 – 2027 (FY27). In total, Yale’s annual voluntary payments to the city will increase from the current $13 million to over $23 million for each of the next five fiscal years. (See chart above.)
That increased contribution comes a year after Yale saw its endowment skyrocket in value by $12.1 billion.
Thomas Breen photo
Mayor Elicker and Yale President Salovey at Nov. 17 City Hall presser announcing Yale deal.
• The conversion of High Street between Chapel and Elm Streets downtown into, as Elicker wrote, a “City-owned walkway without vehicular access.” That will include the removal of parking meters from that stretch of High Street.
“Although this stretch of High Street will remain a city thoroughfare,” Salovey wrote, “the city will no longer allow vehicular traffic, other than emergency vehicles; thereby, we will create a beautiful public space that will welcome students, New Haven residents, and people from around the world.” Yale will design the road-to-walkway conversion, which will ultimately have to be approved by the City Plan Commission.
“After design approval, Yale will fund and manage the development of this public space and will maintain it for as long as Yale and the city both wish Yale to do so,” Salovey said.
The city last handed over downtown streets to the university in 2013, when it sold portions of High Street and Wall Street to Yale for $3 million. Unlike in that deal, this proposal would see the city continue to own High Street between Chapel and Elm — even as Yale takes the lead in designing, developing, and operating the public no-cars-allowed walkway.
• Yale’s creation of a new Center of Inclusive Growth to which the university will contribute $5 million in the first six years.
Salovey wrote that new center’s goals to include “seeking to identify economic and social development initiatives aimed at bolstering growth throughout our community.” It will “benefit from an advisory committee consisting of subject matter experts from both the city and the university,” and it will be run by Yale School of Management Dean Kerwin Charles. Salovey also wrote that the center’s “structure and initial projects will be developed in the coming months.”
City of New Haven chart
Sliding scale of Yale’s payments to the city for newly acquired tax-exempt properties.
• A commitment by Yale to, as Elicker put it, “partially offset the loss in tax revenues for any properties the University acquires and converts to exempt status over the next six years.” That will see Yale pay 100 percent of a property’s local property tax amount for three years after acquisition. It will then pay the city a sliding scale of payments that reduces steadily from the fourth year to the 12th year after acquisition, resulting in no property taxes paid on that property from the 13th year on.
If approved by the full Board of Alders, the proposed resolution would result in two actions:
• The Board of Alders would accept Salovey’s letter and the voluntary payments from Yale “in a manner consistent with the Letter.”
• The mayor would be authorized and directed to act “as the authorized representative of the City with respect to implementation of the four components in the Letter, together with any other documents that are reasonably required to implement the provisions of the Letter.”
“A deal for Yale to increase voluntary payments to the city by $52 million over the next six years — and design, convert, and control a publicly owned pedestrian plaza on High Street“
Stop selling our city streets to Yale! It doesn’t matter if the city still technically “owns” the street, if Yale has control over how it is used!
The state of CT should revise which institutions and organizations should continue to qualify as tax exempt, and how the state reimburses their municipalities that host those organizations and institutions.
The city should not have to be selling off pieces of its self and losing taxable properties to insanely wealthy institutions like Yale that are gobbling up real estate right and left. Before you know it, the vast majority of this city will be owned by Yale, Yale New Haven Health/Hospital systems, or their affiliated companies and organizations, and the non-Yale related properties will be owned by the mega landlords monopoly and real estate investors/speculators who will set market rates and rent to Yale and YNHH students and employees, and the city of New Haven will have lost its independence, its character, and its very soul for a mere fraction of Yale's worth.