Markeshia Ricks Photo
Parker and Clausen lay out recommendations.
As plans emerge for some of its empty spaces, Westville’s commercial district has a new suggested plan for denser, less car-dependent development.
The recommendations, which include a special zoning change just for the district, are featured in a report presented to the Westville Community Management Team.
Students in the Yale Law School Community and Economic Development Clinic worked on the report for a year and a half in conjunction with the Westville Village Renaissance Alliance in the wake of the 2014 fire that burned the beloved Delaney’s Restaurant & Tap Room at Whalley and Central.
Kendyl Clausen, a student with the clinic, told neighbors at the most recent Community Management Team meeting that the team realized early on that current zoning regulations for Westville Village would prevent the redevelopment of the now vacant former Delaney’s lot into what it was before —an alcohol-serving restaurant on the first floor with apartments above.
Much of Westville Village is zoned under the Business A, or BA, district, according to the report. That zoning district focuses mostly on retail space and allows for more suburban-style development that favors setbacks from the street and keeping residences and retail separate. (The old Delaney’s was grandfathered in.)
After receiving 370 survey responses, and conducting nine focus groups to gather more detailed information, the students learned that neighbors want development that favors “New Urbanist” principles — mixed uses, denser development, less surface parking — while maintaining the eclectic nature of the village.
“We considered amending the BA zone or replacing it with the BA‑1 zone, but ultimately we recommended creating a new zone for Westville Village using BA‑1 as a framework,” the students wrote in the report, which you can read here.
Clausen with Joseph Jampel and WVRA’s Lizzy Donius at management team meeting.
The city is currently overhauling the language that governs business zones in the center of the city. The students suggested that it might be an opportune time to create some code that specifically addresses Westville. Clausen noted that because of the current zoning it would be easier to bring a drive-through restaurant to the former Delaney’s site than a another brewpub.
“And if you do bring a new building there, there’s no requirement that ensures that that building really meshes with the rest of the downtown area,” she added.
That’s where a Westville specific zoning code would come in. Clausen pointed out that other parts of the city have such codes.
Fellow law student Andy Parker said that through the study the team learned how many elements of the neighborhood people value, including the arts community, the West River and views of West Rock. He said people also talked about making the neighborhood more walkable and making the village center more vibrant.
To that end, the study recommends reducing parking requirements in the Westville zone and establishing a parking district that would return the revenue generated to the neighborhood.
“Establishing a parking district in Westville … mitigates the need for nonresidential parking requirements,” the researchers wrote. “In fact, if a parking district were established contemporaneously with a new zone, it might be possible to completely eliminate parking requirements for nonresidential uses. We further recommend reducing the residential parking requirement by lowering the number of spaces required per dwelling unit or by allowing spaces to be located at some distance away from the unit.”
The researchers suggested that the parking district would allow business owners to allocate the space that would have traditionally been required under current requirements for something more economically beneficial.
Parker pointed out that current zoning code has incentives for having lots of parking and buildings set back from the street. “But people thought that kind of disrupts this idea of a more pedestrian friendly neighborhood,” he said. “That we could walk down the street and have a street wall that makes it easier for a restaurant or shop to catch your eye at the sidewalk.”
Neighbors also noted to the researchers their concerns about empty storefronts and absentee landlords. Though the study doesn’t offer any specific suggestions to address absentee landlords, it does suggest that zoning changes could have an impact on attracting the right mix of business and residential uses.
The report suggests that having a densely developed village would make it more walkable. Expanding the uses through changes to the zoning code, while using that same code to regulate the look and height of what gets developed, would make the village not only more community friendly, but also more attractive to businesses and developers, the authors argued.
Clausen said the next steps for the team would be to create a new proposal for the Westville specific zoning code.
When most people think of slumlords, they think of residential properties. Westville has an abundance of slumlords who own commercial properties. They take the rents and do very little with the properties for years upon years. And the owner of 500 Blake and other properties happens to be a millionaire who could care less about whether his properties rent or sell. Unfortunately, there's not much more we can do until some of these owners finally sell off or die. The quaint buildings are becoming eyesores and many have not been upgraded in decades. Because the village is small, it only takes a few property owners to make it difficult to attract new business.