Emily Hays Photo
Alder Evette Hamilton at Dwight meeting.
Dwight neighbors have fleshed out details of a plan to avoid growing pains with the Yale New Haven Hospital’s planned neuroscience center: smooth traffic flow and welcome more employees to the neighborhood
Patricia Wallace presented the Dwight Central Management Team’s recommendations on Tuesday evening in the Amistad Academy cafeteria.
The seven-page report was a joint effort between neighbors and Alan Plattus of the Yale Urban Design Workshop. The goal is to inject grassroots input into the largest building project to hit the neighborhood in decades.
Click here to read the full report.
“We do not object to the hospital going up,” said Team Chair Florita Gillespie. “We just are concerned about what might cause us health issues. They are willing to work with us on that.”
Patricia Wallace.
Dwight neighbors have spent long hours discussing the neuroscience center. The center would reach eight stories on the corner of Sherman Avenue and George Street and cost $838 million to build. YNHH is also planning to expand its emergency center on Orchard Street and build two new parking garages where the Orchard Street Garage is now. The garages would accommodate the parking need for the new facilities, estimated at around 1,000 additional spaces.
The same night in January the Board of Alders approved the center unanimously, Dwight neighbors decided to form a committee to push YNHH on specific investments that would take care of neighborhood concerns.
Tuesday night’s report was the first product of that committee.
A section written by neighbor and Yale medical school student Osman Moneer documented the justification for the report. Traffic could increase already high asthma rates and car crashes in a diverse, largely low-income neighborhood.
Moneer found that around 12 percent of adults and children in Dwight have asthma. Exhaust from cars idling behind school buses or at the entrances to garages could increase that rate, Moneer said.
Click here to read the group’s Dwight community health profile.
Dwight Central Management Team
A map of school bus stops within a two-mile radius of the Yale New Haven Hospital Saint Raphael Campus.
Dwight has had its fair share of car crashes involving walkers and bikers as well – 31 in the past two years.
With these concerns in mind, Dwight neighbors requested that YNHH help improve the flow of traffic around the St. Raphael campus to avoid idling.
Some of this request is already underway. The hospital and the city have worked out an arrangement to help time stoplights and improve the experience for people trying to cross those intersections on foot.
Another way to get at the same problem is encourage YNHH employees to live nearby, so they can walk and bike instead of adding to traffic from cars. The Dwight management team suggested YNHH promote their existing HOME program for first-time homebuyers and add incentives for program participants to purchase their homes nearby.
Emily Hays Photo
The Saint Raphael Emergency Room on Orchard Street.
This came up in a previous meeting as a way to help maintain affordability in the neighborhood and counteract potential displacement of existing residents.
Other recommendations included relocating two historic buildings at 125 and 131 Sherman Avenue, making the garage design friendlier to passersby, helping the Dwight neighborhood work on long-term urban planning and continuing to update the management team.
None of the attendees at the meeting had any further questions about the management team’s recommendations, so Gillespie concluded the agenda item with a reminder of why it all mattered.
A school bus stops across from the Saint Raphael Campus at Sherman Avenue and George Street.
“The number one issue is traffic in our neighborhood. People are getting hit. People are getting killed. People are just driving like they are on the Daytona 500, especially on streets where kids are getting on and off the bus,” Gillespie said.
YNHH community relations coordinator Andrew Orefice had just received the report on Tuesday afternoon, so he did not have a comment yet on the recommendations. Wallace said that the Dwight committee is meeting with YNHH next week to discuss them in more detail.
The word "demands" in the headline (written by Paul?) implies that the management team has some leverage. It doesn't - the center has its city approvals. The concerns described in the article are real and the recommendations are reasonable. But that is what they are, recommendations.