Markeshia Ricks Photo
Alder Eidelson, proposal’s lead author.
A new owner has almost finished clearing out one of downtown’s last rooming houses, but some city alders are looking to stop him from converting the place into a luxury “boutique” hotel.
Paul Bass Photo
Hotel Duncan: Will owner win the race for a permit?
The alders, led by outgoing Yale Ward 1 Alder Sarah Eidelson, have proposed that the city declare a temporary moratorium “on the conversion, demolition, and rehabilitation of boarding-rooms and boarding-room units,” or SROs (single-room-occupancy facilities).
The moratorium would last six months or until the the Board of Alders “adopts a new, permanent ordinance or ordinances addressing the conversion, demolition, or rehabilitation of boarding-room units into non-residential uses, including hotel use.”
The moratorium would not cover structures being demolished for public safety reasons or conversions being carried out by affordable-housing builders.
It would cover the planned conversion of Chapel Street’s historic Hotel Duncan, whose new Chicago-based owner, AJ Capital Partners, has cleared out all week-to-week boarders in order to renovate the 92-room building into an an upscale university-themed “boutique” hotel.
So the race is on. Alders are seeking to pass the moratorium before the Duncan redeveloper gets a building permit. (Update: As soon as the Board of Alders formally received the proposal this week, it scheduled a public hearing on it for Thursday night, Nov. 30, beginning at 7:30 p.m.) The redeveloper’s team has begun meeting with the city’s building department to get an exploratory demolition permit.
Whatever happens, a legal battle may loom over the alders’ ability to stop work. One question will concern whether the moratorium would cover the Duncan plan. (Mayoral spokesman Laurence Grotheer said the corporation counsel has concluded at this point that the proposal would indeed cover the Duncan.) A second question could concern whether it would still cover the Duncan if it obtains that initial exploratory demolition permit first. Meanwhile, the debate over affordable housing in an upscaling downtown, and who gets to live where in the new New Haven, will gain a new forum.
Chicago, Oakland Inspiration
The alders’ proposal would take the form of an amendment to the city’s zoning ordinance. The amendment (you can find the full text at the bottom of this story) is being introduced Thursday night to the full Board of Alders, which in most cases like this would assign the matter to a committee for a hearing and preliminary vote. Joining Eidelson in introducing the amendment are Alders Dolores Colón of the Hill, Frank Douglass of Dwight, Wooster’s Square’s Aaron Greenberg, and Newhallville’s Delphine Clyburn.
Eidelson, who did not run for reelection this year (and thus ends her tenure in office on Dec. 31.) last month hosted a community meeting to air concerns about the loss of single-room occupancy rooming houses or boarding houses downtown, along with the evaporation of central-city affordable housing.
Four of the five alders sponsoring the bill are members or employees of Yale’s UNITE HERE locals, which represent hotel workers in the area. UNITE HERE Local 35 President and international Executive Board member Bob Proto did not return phone calls seeking comment on whether UNITE HERE is seeking a union-organizing neutrality agreement with the hotel’s new owner. In the past, hotel owners have fielded requests from UNITE HERE for neutrality agreements in conjunction with the quest for public approvals for renovations. Developer David Cordish, for instance, won city approvals to renovate the old Park Plaza Hotel into the Omni after he signed to a neutrality agreement (in which he promised not to interfere with the organizing of a union). Labor leaders argue that such agreements enable workers to earn living wages and the community to share in the benefits of economic development.
Eidelson said in an interview Wednesday that her motivation is preserving affordable housing, not labor organizing.
She said she does intend the proposed moratorium to halt the plans for the Duncan renovation. She said she was inspired by similar moratoria passed in Chicago and Oakland, which have also seen housing prices soar and affordable housing disappear. Chicago passed its moratorium in 2014 with the support of Mayor Rahm Emanuel. Oakland approved a 45-day moratorium this past December.
“For me this is really about affordable housing,” Eidelson said. “How we use the spaces that we do have, and who these buildings are going to serve, are at the heart of our values as a city.”
Her proposal would “hit the pause button and give the board a little bit of time to craft regulations to say if this types of conversions are going to happen, under what conditions,” she said.
At Mayor Toni Harp’s request, the City Plan Commission then passed a resolution to hold a public hearing in case the Duncan’s new owner needs to come before it to seek approval for a site plan for the renovation.
It’s not clear whether AJ Capital will need to come before City Plan, because at this point it doesn’t plan on doing exterior work, just interior demolition. But that remains an open question, one the corporation counsel’s office is looking into, according to mayoral spokesman Laurence Grotheer.
Building Official Jim Turcio said he has reviewed preliminary plans for the Duncan. The builder does need a building permit. Turcio said he has a meeting scheduled this coming Tuesday with AJ Capital’s code consultant to discuss the renovation plan’s plumbing needs, floor area, and occupancy levels, as part of the process of preparing an initial exploratory demolition permit (which would allow AJ Capital to tear open walls to learn what future work will be needed).
If AJ Capital manages to get a permit approved before the moratorium takes effect, one legal question would be whether New Haven has the right to deny subsequent permits under the terms of a moratorium passed after an initial permit approval.
Graduate Hotels President Tim Franzen did not return calls for comment for this story. “I’m studying this,” his local attorney, Carolyn Kone, said of the alders’ moratorium proposal. She declined further comment.
4 Tenants Left
Paul Bass Photo
Elaine Sanders in her former Duncan apartment.
AJ Capital Partners paid $8 million to buy the circa 1894 Duncan building, which had been serving as part SRO, part regular hotel. The company paid an arm of the housing authority $50,000 to help the 39 SRO tenants find new homes. (Click here for a story about the some of the tenants who moved out.) The tenants paid between $170 and $240 a week (rather than a night) to stay there. It was a rare downtown room available at that rate.
As of Saturday, only four of the 39 SRO tenants still remain in the hotel, according to housing authority Executive Director Karen DuBois-Walton. She said the remaining four have move-outs scheduled for between Nov. 14 and Dec. 1.
Through its university-focused Graduate Hotels division, AJ Capital plans on scrapping the SRO business model in the renovated Duncan, converting the entire hotel by January 2019 to traditional, nightly rentals, and reducing the total number of rooms to around 70 or 72. Each room is to have its own bathroom, as opposed to the current layout, in which some rooms share a single bathroom. (Click here to read more about the plans.)
The city’s economic development chief, Matthew Nemerson, both embraced the idea of preserving SROs in town and opposed the idea of having a moratorium that would stop the Duncan renovation plans from proceeding.
“You can’t change the rules after someone has spent $8 million and has plans and has been talking to people about what it wants to do. That’s not the way the city wants to be presenting itself to the developing and investing public.
“Everybody’s already left. They already spent tens of thousands of dollars to help people find new housing,” Nemerson said.
“This is really a hotel. Because the hotel had been failing over the years and hadn’t been invested in and because it still had rooms that were laid out at the turn of the last century, it defaulted to having people living in it.”
Nemerson noted that only two of the former Duncan SRO tenants showed up at the recent public meeting about the plans. “The two people talked about how they were alone and there was a community. We see the power of people living in communities, especially when they’re alone and they don’t have family, they don’t have spouses. Some people would like to do that in cities and not out in the more suburban retirement communities that they have. So I think we’re really talking about: How does America treat aging people? How does America treat its seniors? And how do we create a range of community and give them a high quality of life?
“Everyone in the city — because other places don’t — are dedicated to that. There really aren’t other communities that are open to having people of all different incomes at all stages of their lives living together.”
Grandfathered In
Markeshia Ricks Photo
Hotel Duncan redeveloper Tim Franzen meeting with neighbors in September.
Hovering over the debate is the hot New Haven real estate market. Developers have been racing to build market-rate (read: expensive) apartments downtown, transforming entire blocks practically overnight. The Hotel Duncan was one of the few places left where someone could rent a single room for under $800 or less a month.
Even if a developer wanted to construct a new rooming house downtown and could obtain financing, he or she would have trouble obtaining permission under the current zoning code. The Hotel Duncan’s zoning permission was grandfathered in; it dates back more than a century. The place currently has no enclosed stairway where students could flee in a fire, for instance, and limited handicapped accessibility.
“That building would not meet code today” in its current condition, observed Building Official Turcio.
The city building code defines a rooming house where four or more people live in rooms “intended to be used for living and sleeping, but not for cooking or eating purposes.” They often have shared bathrooms or central eating areas.
Thirty-one establishments in New Haven are licensed as rooming houses, according to records on file at the city Building Department. That list includes all hotels in town (including the Omni and the Study) as well as the Rochdale co-op on Elm Street. The remaining facilities geared toward poorer and transient renters include:
• The Duncan
• Continuum of Care at on Howard Avenue.
• Lori Saunders Rooming House on Upper State.
• Lorenzo Wilson Rooming House on Ellsworth Avenue.
• Project More’s Walter Brooks facility on Howard Avenue, Transition House on Grand Avenue, and Virginia Wells facility on George Street.
• The Connection’s six separate programs at the Y housed at 44 Howe St.; a second facility on Park Street; and a third on Dwight Street.
• Fellowship Place in the Dwight neighborhood.
• Careways Shelter on Portsea Street.
Amendment Text
Allan Appel Photo
The Duncan lobby.
Following is the full text of the proposed amendment:
ORDER OF THE BOARD OF ALDERS APPROVING AMENDMENTS TO TITLE VI, VOLUME III, NEW HAVEN ZONING ORDINANCE, OF THE CODE OF ORDINANCES.
WHEREAS, the City of New Haven’s Comprehensive Plan for Development and Land Use Vision 2025 says that the city “currently lacks opportunities for transitional, single-room occupancy housing suitable for young adults, seniors, persons with disabilities, etc” and sets a goal to “pursue Zoning Ordinance amendments to allow the construction of single-room occupancy housing within and closer to Downtown”; and
WHEREAS, boarding houses — including “single-room occupancy” hotels (SROs)— provide flexible and easily accessible housing that allows residents to remain in New Haven and to avoid homelessness, often as an option of last resort for the poor; and
WHEREAS, a number of economic forces, including the high cost of new construction, create incentives for developers to purchase boarding houses, including SROs, and repurpose them for uses that result in the displacement of existing tenants or the removal of rental units from the market; and
WHEREAS, the loss of SROs would exacerbate the already overwhelming burden on public and non-profit agencies that provide important and necessary services to the tenant population of such hotels; and
WHEREAS, there is an urgent need for the City to study the effects of the conversion of boarding houses to non-residential uses and its impact on the affordability of housing in New Haven, and to consider amendments to the City’s Housing and Zoning Ordinances to address the problem, including by considering the requirement of housing relocation assistance for those displaced by boarding-house conversions and by encouraging the construction of more SRO units within and close to Downtown; now, therefore,
NOW THEREFORE BE IT ORDAINED that
SECTION ONE: The New Haven Zoning Ordinance shall be amended by the addition of the following Supplement:
1. Duration of Interim Ordinance. This Ordinance shall remain in full force and effect for a period of six (6) months from the date of its adoption, except as in Section 3 below. This period may be extended by resolution of the Board of Alders.
2. Definitions. The following terms, whenever used in this Ordinance, shall be construed as defined in this section. Words and phrases not defined here shall be construed as defined in the New Haven Code of Ordinances.
• Affordable Housing Organization means a religious, hospital, scientific, or charitable fund, foundation, limited liability company, or corporation, including a limited partnership in which the managing general partner is an eligible nonprofit corporation or eligible limited liability company, or a veterans’ organization.
• Affordable Housing Development means a property used exclusively for rental housing and related facilities, owned or operated by an affordable housing organization where, pursuant to legally binding restrictions, all of the units are restricted as affordable housing at an affordable rent or affordable housing cost, as defined in C.G.S., Title 8, § 8 – 39a.
• Boarding House means a rooming house, as defined in Code of Ordinances, Title IV, Par. 100(v), which contains four or more Boarding-House Units.
• Boarding-House Unit means a rooming unit, as defined in Code of Ordinances, Title IV, Par. 100(w) which has been let to the same person or persons for a period of more than 30 days at any time during the previous six months.
• Conversion means any action that converts one or more existing boarding-house units in a boarding house to be used for other residential or commercial activities, regardless of whether substantial improvements have been made to such units.
• Demolition means an action that reduces the number of existing boarding-house units in a boarding house, either through complete or partial demolition of the building, or by combining two or more existing boarding-house units.
• Owner means the owner of record of a boarding house or an entity or individual with a long-term lease in a boarding house.
• Rehabilitation means reconfiguration, reconstruction, renovation, repair, or other improvement to all or part of a boarding house or boarding-house unit which results in displacement of existing residents for more than two (2) weeks.
3. Temporary Moratorium. For a period of six (6) months from the effective date of this Ordinance, or until such time as the Board of Alders adopts a new, permanent ordinance or ordinances addressing the conversion, demolition, or rehabilitation of boarding-room units into non-residential uses, including hotel use, whichever comes first, the City of New Haven hereby declares a moratorium on the conversion, demolition, and rehabilitation of boarding-rooms and boarding-room units (the “Moratorium”). During the term of this Moratorium:
• No site plan approval or permit, including building permits, shall be granted to convert, demolish, or rehabilitate a boarding house or boarding-house unit;
• No site plan approval or permit, including building permits, shall be granted for any new construction, demolition, or rehabilitation on a lot where a resident of such boarding room or boarding room unit has been or will be displaced for more than two (2) weeks;
• No new rooming house license shall be granted for a rooming house that has converted, demolished, or rehabilitated a boarding house or boarding-house unit during the pendency of this moratorium, and any rooming house license issued subsequent to the passage of this ordinance shall be deemed null and void if the holder of the license subsequently converts, demolishes, or rehabilitates the boarding house or boarding-house unit during the pendency of this ordinance.
4. Exceptions. This Ordinance shall not apply to:
• Any boarding house that has been or shall be converted into an Affordable Housing Development, as determined by the Fair Rent Commission; or
• Any boarding house that must comply with a City order (1) to repair or demolish all or part of the boarding house that is unsafe, uninhabitable, or in substandard condition; (2) to rebuild due to destruction by fire or natural disaster; or (3) to comply with administrative nuisance abatement proceedings.
5. Petition for Relief from Moratorium. The Board of Alders, acting in its legislative capacity and by resolution, may grant an exception from this Ordinance in cases (1) where the Moratorium’s application would be unlawful under and/or conflict with Federal or State law; or (2) where it has been shown to the satisfaction of the Board of Alders that application of the moratorium to the boarding-room house would deny the owner of the boarding-room house all economically beneficial use of the property. An application for exemption shall be filed with the City Clerk on forms provided by the City.
6. Implementing Interpretations and Regulations. The City Plan Commission has authority to issue interpretations of and regulations to implement this Ordinance, including without limitation to develop a list of boarding houses that are subject to the Moratorium. Such interpretations and regulations shall be subject to revision by resolution of the Board of Alders.
SECTION TWO: Severability. If any section, subsection, sentence, clause or phrase of this Ordinance is for any reason held to be invalid or unconstitutional by decision of any court of competent jurisdiction, such decision shall not affect the validity of the remaining portions of the Ordinance. The Board of Alders hereby declares that it would have adopted the Ordinance, and each section, subsection, clause or phrase thereof, irrespective of the fact that one or more sections, subsections, sentences, clauses or phrases be declared invalid or unconstitutional.
SECTION THREE. Effective Date. This ordinance shall be effective immediately upon passage.
this is why New Haven will never be a great city and why CT will continue to loose business to NY and Boston. who protests getting rid of tenements. Only in New Haven. Its unreal the way we hold ourselves back at our own expense.