12 Decisions, 1 Q: How To Add Housing?

Some wanted to add new apartments to existing multi-family homes they rent out for profit. Others wanted to build new affordable nonprofit homes.

They were united by one goal: Find a way around New Haven’s strict zoning rules for what can be done with small lots and living spaces.

Their varying reasons reflected the challenges New Haven faces as it rewrites those rules for the 21st century.

Those property owners’ requests for zoning relief took place at the most recent monthly meeting of the Board of Zoning Appeals.

At the Zoom-held meeting, commissioners legalized seven existing apartments, OK’d seven new housing units, and heard applications to approve three additional places to live during a marathon meeting that shone a light on the demand for local small-lot land use reform.

The flood of applications for various forms of zoning relief underscored just how much of a bureaucratic impediment some of the city’s decades-old zoning laws — around minimum gross floor area, off-street parking, front yard setbacks, and lot area requirements — have become to landlords, homeowners and small-scale developers looking to build new places to live.

The applications and approvals came at the same time that the City Plan Department has proposed updates to the zoning code to make it easier to build basement, garage, and attic apartments. The city has also proposed reducing the minimum lot area requirement in all residential zones citywide to 4,000 square feet.

Twelve of the requests were strikingly similar in their bids to increase New Haven housing stock despite current land-use law obstructions. They also reflected a diversity of applicants and contexts in which those properties currently exist.

Some were submitted by large-scale landlords looking to beef up multi-family homes.

Some were submitted by a local affordable homeownership nonprofit looking to build houses atop vacant lots.

Some were submitted by owner-occupants looking to add an additional apartments to their homes.

And some were submitted by landlords large and small alike looking to legalize residential spaces that have existed as apartments for years, if not decades.

“The perception that a basement unit is less than or in some way unsafe is an anachronistic view of basement apartments,” local attorney Ben Trachten (pictured) said at the meeting, which was held last Tuesday night. He was speaking in support of one such application, to add two new basement apartments to a three-family house on Stanley Street. ​“I think with the new ADU ordinance that’s coming, we’re going to be seeing a whole lot more of these basement units.”

“I’m reconverting the home back to a two-family,” East Pearl Resident Uloma Onuma said in support of a separate application, to overcome a minimum parking requirement that stands in the way of her adding another dwelling unit to her single-family house. ​“What I’m doing is taking it back to its original use. I’m also trying to add some more income for myself, which is something I think you’ve been looking at.”

“While not in the [BZA’s] jurisdiction, City Plan should revisit minimum lot size requirements to address situations just like this,” East Rock resident Kevin McCarthy said in support of yet another application, by a Bishop Street landlord looking to subdivide his lot into two legal parcels with an existing two-family house and an existing single-family house on the other.

Legalizing What’s Already There

Many of Tuesday night’s housing-related zoning relief applications fell into the category of: This already exists. Please make it legal.

Norman Silliker (pictured), for example, presented to the board his application for a variance to permit 600 square feet of gross floor area per dwelling unit where 1,000 square feet is required and a special exception to allow for 0 off-street parking spaces where one is required for an additional dwelling unit where three currently exist at 551 Orange St.

Silliker, who lives at the Orange Street property, said that he and his partner Matthew Whiting recently went to the bank for a matter related to their apartment building. The bank asked for a letter of legal use and occupancy. They reached out to City Hall for the appropriate paperwork.

And, lo and behold, the property they have long thought was a four-family house is actually identified by the city as a three-family.

This was a ​“big surprise,” Silliker said. ​“This building has been a four-family for many decades.”

Silliker stressed that he does not plan on doing any kind of construction and expansions to the current building. Rather, his application to the BZA is just to legalize a fourth apartment that already exists.

Because the application relates to parking relief, the BZA referred the matter to the City Plan Commission, with plans to take a final vote next month.

Local attorney Trachten pitched the BZA on three similar applications for two different clients looking to legalize existing living spaces.

One application by Saturn Properties LLC — a holding company controlled by Pike International’s Shmully Hecht — sought a variance to permit 671.76 square feet of gross floor area per dwelling unit where 1,000 square feet is required and to allow for 0 square feet of usable open space where 125 square feet is required for an additional dwelling unit in an existing structure at 25 Lynwood Pl.

The city currently lists that apartment building as containing 12 legal units, Trachten said. Looking back at 1960s-era land records, however, the property had 13 legal units. Which is exactly how it’s used today.

“It’s not an undersized unit, even though it’s located on the lower level,” Trachten said. ​“And it’s in a beautiful historic-looking building on a beautiful tree-lined block in close proximity to Yale’s campus.”

“I’m big on areas of living space,” BZA Chair Mildred Melendez said before she and her fellow commissioners unanimously voted in support of legalizing that existing 13th apartment. ​“It seems like a nice-sized apartment.”

And in yet another similar application, landlords Edward and Julie Avergun (pictured) sought a variance to allow for 855 square feet per dwelling unit where 1,000 square feet is required and a special exception to allow for 0 parking spaces where two are required to allow for two additional dwelling units where four currently exist.

The Averguns told the zoning board that they recently purchased this Howard Avenue apartment building, which came with six occupied and built out apartments.

“The six units have been there forever” according to the floor plans, Julie said. They were also legal before 2014, when the building was rezoned from a six-family to a four-family. ​“We are asking that we can make those six units legal.”

Because this application seeks parking relief, it too was referred to the City Plan Commission, with a final BZA vote slated for next month.

Adding To Existing Structures

Another group of zoning relief applications heard at the meeting saw homeowners and landlords seeking to create new units — rather than legalize existing units — in already-standing residential buildings.

Uloma Onuma (pictured), who lives in a single-family house at 65 East Pearl St., submitted an application for a special exception to allow for 0 off-street parking spaces where one is required for an additional dwelling unit where one currently exists.

Onuma told the commissioners that the Fair Haven house previously existed as a two-family home. She now wants to turn it back to that use, primarily so that she can bolster her income by renting out an on-site apartment.

City zoning staffer Nate Hougrand told the board that the additional dwelling unit sought by Onuma meets the 1,000 square feet minimum size for new legal apartments. The problem is with the city’s minimum parking requirements.

“The additional dwelling unit conversion is allowed as of right,” he said. ​“However, the site cannot properly accommodate the additional parking spaces, which is the need for the special exception.”

Onuma’s application was referred to City Plan Commission. The zoning board plans to vote on it next month.

Speaking up on behalf of Fortley LLC — a holding company controlled by Reichman Brodie Real Estate’s Barnett Brodie—Attorney Trachten pitched the zoning commissioners on an application for a variance to permit 1,855.2 square feet of lot area per dwelling where 2,000 square feet is required to allow for two additional dwelling units where three currently exist at 47 Stanley St.

Trachten explained that the ​“oversized” three-family house, consisting of over 6,500 square feet of gross area, can easily accommodate more units. In fact, his client could create a fourth unit as of right, due to the size of available space at the property.

“Since conversion would allow a single additional unit to be placed in a 1600+ square foot basement,” he wrote in the zoning relief application, ​“the applicant seeks to divide that oversized but permitted basement unit into 2 manageably sized units that are more in keeping with the neighborhood.” He wrote that the basement units would also be ​“brought up to applicable building code with window egress as required, and comply with all of the standards of the zoning ordinance.”

He pitched this two-unit basement conversion as ​“consistent with the goals of the ADU proposal.”

“Is it more reasonable to allow one 1,600 square foot unit that may be used in a manner incompatible with the neighborhood, or is it better to do two 800 square foot units?” Trachten asked.

The BZA ultimately agreed with the two-unit pitch, and unanimously approved the variance application.

Also at last week’s meeting, Nateysha Poindexter applied to the BZA for a variance to allow 672 square feet of gross floor area per dwelling unit where 1,000 square feet is required and a special exception to allow for 0 off-street parking spaces where one is required for an additional dwelling unit in an existing single-family structure at 28 Stevens St.

She told the zoning commissioners that her company Poindexter FS LLC recently purchased the burnt-out Hill property at a foreclosure sale for $140,000.

The city assessor’s office appraised the house as a two family. The city taxes the house as a two family. But then, when she pulled the certificate of occupancy from the city after buying it, she found out that it had been converted to a single-family sometime in the 1990s.

“I would like to continue with what I purchased it for,” Poindexter said in her bid to convert the home to a two-family. ​“With what my investment was based on, not the material defect caused by the foreclosure sale. The city literally overcharged these people for 30 years, taxing them as a two family. The city represented to the family, to the court that this was a two family.”

Trachten, speaking up as a member of the public rather than an attorney on record, threw his support behind Poindexter’s zoning relief application.

“This is a common problem, trying to determine the legal occupancy of a unit,” he said. ​“Sometimes the BZA is the last and only place to get the proper outcome in a situation like this.” This problem of unclear city land records about building occupancy is one that ​“impacts not just the unknowing public when they bid at a foreclosure sale, but also attorneys and professionals and realtors as well.”

The BZA referred Poindexter’s application to the City Plan Commission, with plans to vote on it next month.

New Construction In Newhallville

Lastly, the BZA did unanimously approve three zoning relief applications by the local affordable homeownership nonprofit Neighborhood Housing Services of New Haven (NHS) for three new houses — two two-family and one single-family — they plan to build on vacant lots in Newhallville.

Architect Salvatore Raffone (pictured) pitched the zoning board on each application:

• For variances to allow for a building wall height of 20 feet 6 inches where a maximum of 17 feet is permitted and to allow for a projection to be located more than five feet within the required front yard for the construction of a single-family structure at 44 Lilac St.;

• For variances to permit a rear yard of 18 feet 8 inches where 25 is required, a front yard of 14 feet 2 inches where 17 feet is required, a building wall height of 29 feet 6 inches where a maximum of 15 feet 8 inches is allowed, to allow for a projection to be located more than five feet within the required front yard, and to allow for the construction of two dwelling units where one is permitted on a non-conforming lot at 83 – 85 Butler St.;

• And for variances to allow for a building wall height of 29 feet 6 inches where a maximum of 17 feet two inches is permitted, to allow for a projection to be located more than five feet within the required front yard, and to allow for the construction of two dwelling units where one is permitted on a non-conforming lot at 260 West Hazel St.

Considering that all three of these new homes will be built atop vacant lots and sold to first-time homebuyers at affordable prices, Raffone said, ​“which we believe is harmonious with New Haven’s own goals of providing affordable housing,” he called on the zoning board to approve the requested relief.

“This project speaks for itself,” BZA Chair Melendez said about one of NHS’s applications. ​“This is something that we need in New Haven.” The board voted unanimously in support of all three.