Westville ​“New Urbanist” Vision Advances

City planners voted unanimously to approve the creation of a new zoning district for Westville Village that they hope will serve as a model for how to use zoning regulations to encourage dense, diverse, mixed-use economic development throughout the city.

During the most recent regular monthly meeting of the City Plan Commission on the second floor of City Hall, the commissioners gave the thumbs up to a proposed zoning ordinance text amendment seeking to establish a new Village Center Mixed Use (BA‑2) zone. The proposal also updates the city’s zoning map to move Westville Village from a General Business (BA) zone to the new BA‑2 zone.

The proposed zoning amendment will now be sent to the full Board of Alders for discussion and a vote before any changes to the zoning ordinance can be made.

For the past two years, the Westville Village Renaissance Association (WVRA) has worked with neighbors, local alders, City Plan staffers and students at the Yale Law School’s Community & Economic Development clinic to develop land planning recommendations designed to encourage pedestrian-friendly residential and commercial development.

WVRA Executive Director Lizzy Donius submitted five letters of support from neighbors who couldn’t make the meeting, and outlined some of the key provisions of the zoning amendment.

“The BA‑2 zone removes the Floor Area Ratio limit and allows a maximum building height of 50 feet,” she told the commissioners at the meeting this past Wednesday night. ​“This will promote higher density construction while the height limit ensures that the neighborhood retains its village feel.” The new regulations maintain BA‑1’s building height minimum of 25 feet.

Yale law student Kendyl Clausen said that the BA‑2 zone also reduces parking requirements for new buildings from one to 0.5 spaces per residential unit, and allows for on-site parking requirements to be located a maximum of 650 feet from the subject property. BA‑1 regulations currently require that on-site parking be located within 300 feet of the property.

Clausen said that changes to the use table will allow for small-scale, pedestrian-friendly commercial development like barber shops and dance schools to be allowed as of right. She said that convenience stores, pawn shops, pay day loans, and drive-in establishments will be prohibited.

Click here to read a previous article with more details about the zoning amendment.

“I am really eager to see all the wonderful things that could happen” because of this amendment, said City Plan Commission Chair Ed Mattison. ​“The only thing that I would say from many years of doing this zoning stuff is that it doesn’t happen immediately, and it doesn’t happen without a lot of effort. You have to convince other people with money that this is something that can be made to work, and that’s a continuing effort. You can’t quit.”

The lone dissenting voice at Wednesday night’s hearing came from Yale chemist Robert Hale. Hale said that he agrees with the ​“new urbanist” principles of the proposal. He called a zoning amendment specific to Westville the wrong way to go about achieving them.

“The zoning code is already long,” he said, ​“and I think we need to be mindful of the detrimental effects of adding on more language.”

“Moreover,” Hale continued, ​“there are unsettling implications of designating a special zone just for Westville. I think that unintentionally implies that Westville may be more deserving of a certain urban form than other parts of the city.”

He said that the proposed regulations for the BA‑2 zone should be rolled into the current BA and BA‑1 zones, so that commercial stretches of State Street, Congress Avenue, Chapel West and Dixwell Avenue can similarly benefit from rules that promote greater density.

He also said that the commissioners should consider including language in the zoning amendment, if it passes, that allows for Single-Room Occupancies (SROs) to be constructed within the zone as of right. A form of affordable housing that allows for individuals who cannot afford or do not want to live in their own home or apartment to live independent, SROs have become an increasingly hot topic in New Haven in the past few months after the sudden closing of the Hotel Duncan last year.

“Although Westville is a very special place,” Mattison said, ​“there are other places that could benefit from the same treatment. My feeling ultimately, though, was that this would be a pilot project. It would give us the opportunity to see whether zoning changes can indeed” successfully encourage dense, mixed-use neighborhoods.

He also said that SROs were a topic near and dear to his heart, and that, while not going so far as to include any specific language about them into the proposed zoning amendment, he hoped that alders and his fellow commissioners would consider how best to use zoning to promote affordable housing development going forward.

The Board of Alders voted earlier this month to create an Affordable Housing Task Force, which has not yet met and is still awaiting appointments from the mayor.