Some of the “deluge” of developments about to hit the city: Downtown Crossing, 87 Union St., Long Wharf, 848 Chapel St.
Thomas Breen photo
Acting Economic Development Administrator and Acting City Plan Director Michael Piscitelli.
Publish a single list of development projects that are open to public comment. Use online maps to explain a project’s history and timeline. And clarify land use-related meeting agendas, so that the public can easily understand what a developer is asking of the city.
City officials heard those and other good-governance recommendations from Downtown and Wooster Square neighbors about how best to keep the public informed and engaged during the city’s current deluge of development and construction.
The recommendations came at the end of the Downtown-Wooster Square Community Management Team’s regular monthly meeting Tuesday night on the second floor of City Hall.
Michael Piscitelli, who currently serves as the acting director of the Economic Development Administration, joined Deputy City Plan Director Aïcha Woods to provide a round up of current and upcoming development projects taking place in Downtown and Wooster Square. The two officials also gave neighbors a crash course on which city bodies perform which administrative functions when it comes to land use and development.
Tuesday night’s Downtown-Wooster Square Community Management Team meeting.
They then asked those in attendance for suggestions on how zoning appeals, site plan reviews, development agreements, and various board and commission meetings can be made more accessible to civically-minded residents who want to stay on top of New Haven’s current construction boom.
“You have been in some ways inundated with different development projects recently,” Piscitelli said. “Downtown is not just the regional center, but it’s also a neighborhood. And those aren’t unrelated concepts.”
In that vein, he and Woods said, the city wants to ensure that residents understand and feel empowered to participate in meetings of the Board of Zoning Appeals (BZA), the City Plan Commission (CPC), and the Historic District Commission (HDC), and to weigh in when they feel like new projects are out of line with the development goals for the neighborhood or for the city more broadly.
Piscitelli said the city’s development goals are not simply about promoting growth for growth’s sake. They include prioritizing affordable housing, equitable access to construction jobs for local workers, and environmental sustainability.
“If there’s one thing I hope to do in the interim role in economic development,” he said, “it’s to have a better blending of our planning and economic development activities such that there’s a commonly understood set of development values going in.”
Downtown Development Projects En Route
Piscitelli.
Piscitelli kicked off the presentation by running through a plethora of new development projects set to hit the Downtown and Wooster Square areas within the next year or two:
• Phase 2 of Downtown Crossing, an effort to reconnect Downtown and the Hill through a combination of bicycle and pedestrian safety improvements, reduced traffic congestion, and reclaimed developable land, is set to begin construction this spring.
• The City Plan Commission and the Board of Alders will soon vote on a Long Wharf Development Plan designed to turn an underutilized stretch just south of Wooster Square into five new walkable, mixed-use neighborhoods.
• The Norwalk-based developer Spinnaker plans to move ahead with the demolition of the historic former Webster Bank building at 80 Elm St. and build a new boutique hotel.
• Hundreds of new apartments will be constructed at 848 Chapel St. and 87 Union St., and dozens more converted from office space at 900 Chapel St.. And even more apartments should be coming soon at the old Comcast service center at 630 Chapel St. now that the city has resolved a four-year legal dispute with a neighboring landlord.
• Beacon Communities, the new owners of the Ninth Square Residences, will be pouring over $13 million into capital improvements at their new property as they plan to take over the mixed-use, half-affordable and half-market rate complex that anchors the Ninth Square neighborhood.
Deputy City Plan Director Aïcha Woods.
While some of these projects have already secured most if not all of their regulatory approvals, he said, some still need to submit site plans to the City Plan Commission, which technical details such as curb cuts, building layouts, and lighting plans; some may need to apply for special exceptions or use variances from the Board of Zoning Appeals, which reviews all proposed deviations from city zoning laws; and some may need to go to the Historic District Commission, which reviews all proposed changes to buildings in designated historic districts.
“How can we communicate this process more clearly?” Woods asked. Through a web interface? Community meetings? Letters? “What’s the best way to help educate people about the process?”
Promoting Public Participation
Kevin McCarthy (right).
Management team members had plenty of suggestions.
“You guys and your colleagues are great,” said visiting East Rock management team Vice-Chair Kevin McCarthy, “but you could do a much better job on public information.”
He said he has a PhD in planning, and even he has trouble deciphering some of the BZA and City Plan Commission agendas. The City Plan department should require applicants to spell out exactly what they are proposing, he said, and the city should make sure that information is clearly stated on the agenda.
David Goldblum (back right).
Local landlord David Goldblum asked Piscitellli and Woods if their department has ever considered publishing a list of projects that are open to public comment, so that residents can easily identify not just which developments are in the works, but also which ones they can submit public testimony on, and when.
Piscitelli pointed out that every public agenda is posted on the city’s website: BZA’s are posted here, CPC’s are posted here, and HDC’s are posted here.
Woods said that, as the city expands its internal use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) mapping technology, perhaps the department could put together a public-facing, interactive map that provides updates on development projects at particular parcels of land.
“This new interactive mapping tool that the city has launched is really, really good,” Piscitelli said. Maybe the map the department should create is “not in the regulatory process, and more of an informational tool for people.”
New Haven Urban Design League President Anstress Farwell recommended that the city allow developers to upload electronic site plan review files directly to the city website, which should then allow interested members of the public to download those electronic copies to review before attending public meetings.
“I spend a lot of time walking into City Plan to look at files,” Farwell said. All too often, she said, the department takes an electronic application and prints it out. She then takes that print copy, scans it, and sends it around to friends and neighbors.
“In this age when things can be communicated so easily,” she said, “when they aren’t, that’s very much a problem.”
Click on the Facebook Live video below to watch Piscitelli and Woods’s entire presentation to and conversation with the Downtown-Wooster Square management team on Tuesday night.
First, let me reiterate that Mike, Aïcha, and their colleagues are very knowledgeable, conscientious, and hardworking. The presentation was very helpful. But neither the notices of Plan Commission or Board of Zoning Appeals hearings or their agendas give residents a good idea of what is being proposed. Mike noted, appropriately, that the city cannot describe a development in way that would indicate prejudice. But it can be far more transparent. It can also require applicants to post signs on the affected property describing their proposals in enough detail so that neighbors and other residents can participate knowledgeably in land use proceedings if they choose to do so.
A larger issue, not discussed at the meeting, is that the city has an antiquated zoning ordinance. While there have been many amendments, the basic framework of the ordinance is nearly a century old. When zoning was first adopted, both density and mixed uses were seen as inherently bad. That is not the case now.