Zoning Relief OK’d For 261 More Apts

This is good news, but really it is not good that the Fair Street project needs any zoning relief.

There should be no minimum parking requirements in the walkable downtown area. Do we care about the environment or is that just empty posturing? Why drive up rents via the costs of mandated parking? (Developers can provide parking if the market demands it).

The 1000 square foot apartment minimum size is pretty explicitly racist/classist in its origins and it should go. Let people live in the size of apartment that they want. The argument that "residents will be rich people who we don't care about, but we insist that they not be exploited by small apartments" is incoherent. ("The food is inedible and the portions are too small.")

The open space rule prevents building out to the natural street front and thereby hurts the urban walkable feel of the neighborhood. We should care about open space but not on a building-by-building basis. If Wooster Square park itself is inadequate open space let's hear why and (if convincing) do something about it.

Esbey, the minimum size is not so much racist/classist as dated. When this provision of the zoning code was adopted, households were substantially larger than they are now. Currently, the average household is about 2.5 persons, and renter households are even smaller. One of the easiest ways for the city to promote affordable housing is reducing or eliminating this requirement.

Expect to see a land rush of applications while the inclusionary zoning requirement is pending. It would not apply to earlier zoning applications.

I support the Post Road proposal (and live nearby). But its affordable housing provision, while nice, is no big deal. The fact that the developer is reserving some apartments for households in these income bands does.not necessarily mean that they would be affordable for these folks. There are about 15,000 renter households with incomes below 50% of AMI in New Haven County. The developer should have no problem filling the reserved apartments at a rent that is below market, but not affordable (no more than 30% of the tenant's income).

Kevin, I have huge respect for your opinions and the many actual facts that you share. But minimum sizes were not adopted to accommodate old-fashioned ideas of family size. The proof is in the many many pre-zoning small apartments that still exist in all cities, because they are "grandfathered" in. There were always single people, post-child couples and poor people who wanted small apartments. The was a huge pre-zoning demand for SROs, for example, because many people in those days were single and childless and poor.

What changed before the zoning "reforms" of the 1960s is that explicit private discrimination was in the process of becoming illegal and unacceptable. The existing red-lining maps could no longer be explicitly used to keep "those people" out. So "reformers" turned to the next best proxy, which is income and wealth. By making affordable small apartments illegal outside of the old "red lined" neighborhoods, you got rid of the kind of people who would live in the them. The concern was typically expressed as maintaining the "character" of the neighborhood, which is pretty clearly about the characters who would live in small apartments. In the old redlined neighborhoods, the old small apartments continued to exist and were grandfathered in, trapping people inside of the old boundaries.

Click on the New Haven redlining maps:

https://dsl.richmond.edu/panorama/redlining/#loc=12/41.303/-73.027&city=new-haven-ct&area=B5

Read the area descriptions. "Infiltration of Negro." "Infiltration of Italian." "Were it not for the fact that this area is entirely Jewish, it would command a higher rating."

Then lay those maps over the modern zoning code.

Esbey, thanks. But you are conflating two related but separate things - zoning and redlining Zoning in the U.S. had its origins more than a century ago. Redlining is more recent.

Although redlining was explicitly racist, when the maps you cite were prepared (the late 30s) New Haven was less than 4% African American. Fair Haven, which was overwhelmingly white at the time, was redlined. So was Wooster Square, which is still predominantly white.

New Haven adopted its first zoning ordinance a decade earlier. Zoning was part of the Progressive Movement, and was partially motivated by severe overcrowding in urban areas. It was common for several households to share a small apartment at the time. Minimum unit size requirements were a response to this.

Zoning was also undeniably classist - see Euclid v. Ambler. (And, in New York City, anti-Semitic.) But race was a much less salient - Northern cities were overwhelming white at that time. When New York City adopted the nation's first zoning ordinance in 1916, the city was more than 97% white.

None of this disputes the significance of racism in urban development. (The Color of Law is very good in its history, if not its legal analysis.) In subsequent generations, redlining was a major factor behind the racial wealth gap. But cities of nearly 100 years ago were very different than the cities of today.

I would not be surprised if the commission holds a hearing on the Fair Street proposal. Not a bad idea. But site review is a "ministerial act" - checking the boxes. The commission cannot address issues that are not currently covered by the zoning ordinance, such as the provision of affordable housing. Affordable housing is a serious issue. But it is the Board of Alders, not the commission, that are the decision-makers on this issue. And while people may think the design of the project is boring (I agree), there is no applicable aesthetic review process in the ordinance.

Whose City is it anyways? The people who live here? The developers looking for profits? Non profits looking for places that will allow them to serve? Elected officials with good intentions? City staff whom know best? Maybe a little of all the above. But how these groups interact is a precious resource that defines civics and the soul of a city.

With out a group of residents from all backgrounds engaging in discourse- the city would for sale and cheap! If we want equity and inclusions we need to practice this at every level and every public process. Sure this is more work - but if it's worth doing, let's do it right.

Developers, big business and not for profits have deep pockets and access to decision makers. City staff are great people but often have well intentioned marching orders that may do disservice to a particular community.

What citizens don't understand is that "the City" is a policing or arbitrating entity. They are not adversaries to applicants and worry about lawsuits or pressure.

The City needs citizenry to speak up so they can negotiate better deals or have cover for denials.
Outspoken residents saved Wooster square during urban renewal, outspoken "personalities" and students saved the Farmington canal from obscurity, residents improve the quality of our public spaces in ways the city never could. These people know thier nieghborhood and know thier city.

These needed "critics" are often marginalized, ignored, not educated about process by the city, nor have their questions answered. As a result these well intentioned participants in democracy are disenfranchised and give up. Great for profiteers and bad for community.
It's not quite Jane Jacob's vs Robert Mosses in New Haven but the tensions are similar.
When City Plan has the prerogative to hold a public hearing - they should listen to the public, answer the community questions and thank the non paid public for caring.

Kevin, you are right that the early 20th century wave of zoning was often (according to local conditions) more antisemitic and anti immigrant, and more anti black in places like St Louis, but I don't know that changes the fundamental point. Indeed much of the "progressive" movement of the time was explicitly in favor of eugenics and restricted immigration. This was not unrelated to stated concerns about "overcrowding."

And the 1960s tightening of zoning laws was surely a reaction to black migration and civil rights.

All one has to do is to look at the early 20th century housing stock in New Haven to see that many forms of smaller housing were allowed then as opposed to now. SROs were legal. I personally lived in a small 1920s East Rock apartment, in a large brick building, that would be illegal to build now. It is not because families got bigger after the 1920s.

Kevin,

With all due respect, when someone talks about race, as an old white guy, you should sit back and listen. Suppress inner urges to disagree, let them dissipate and then reflect. It's sad / cringeworthy reading your inexplicable defense of a (well-documented) racist system by an old white man.

@P Christopher Ozyck

Your comments hit the nail on the head. I couldn't have said it better myself.

This city needs to listen to the communities that their proposals will affect. Well intentioned plans can do more harm than good, if not fine tuned with help from those who will have to live with the results.

The city is good at pretending to listen to our concerns, to placate us, and then going ahead with their plans as scheduled.

P Christopher Ozyck and MyTwoCents- yes I agree with everything you said. We need to listen to a cross section of the city and the city needs to be responsive to the people who actually live here. And we need to listen to the city's champions of causes who help make our city so interesting and attractive and unique because it is not a cookie cutter, tract houses, ticky-tacky, big box store, bedroom community, homogeneous population, and developer's wasteland

Esbey, you're right about the dark side of the Progressive Movement and the role of xenophobia in urban development. And New Haven's zoning ordinance has all sorts of problems, including a near prohibition on SROs. Some of these problems have their roots in the early days of zoning, when density and mixed land uses were viewed as inherently evil. Some of them are more recent creations. But the 60s were complicated times, with all sorts of cross-currents. The major urban demographic change of that time was white flight rather than black in-migration. (that began in the latter part of WWI and accelerated during WWII). BTW, as you may know, the legislature dramatically reduced the role of "character" in zoning this session.

Tmctague, I said The Color of Law, which documents the role of racism in U.S. urban development, gets its history right. And I said that redlining was explicitly racist and a major factor in the racial wealth gap (I hope it is obvious that I view this gap as a huge problem). Hardly a defense of a racist system.

Chris, thanks. In your ample free time 🤓, you might want to talk with Patricia Kane. Her proposal to expand notice requirements for land use actions would be a useful first step in promoting your goal of a more inclusive decision-making process.