Thomas MacMillan Photo
A plan to raze seven homes in the Hill neighborhood to build a new dialysis treatment center went down in a storm of neighborhood opposition on Tuesday night.
The plan was brought before the Board of Zoning Appeals, which held its monthly meeting in the Hall of Records. After neighbors like Tanya Smith (pictured) turned out in force against the proposal, board members voted to deny it.
A development company called Centerplan was requesting a use variance to permit the construction of a 21,000-square-foot dialysis treatment and training center between Davenport Avenue and Ward and Vernon Streets in the Hill. Of the seven buildings that would have been purchased and torn down, six are occupied, comprising a total of 20 apartments. The site would have been the new home of DaVita Dialysis, a national company that now operates a center in the Yale School of Nursing. The nursing school is looking to expand and has asked the company to find a new home in New Haven.
Neighbors objected that a dialysis center would wreck the residential nature of their neighborhood and bring unwanted traffic to the area.
Attorney Anthony Avallone (pictured) appeared in front of the board on Tuesday night with a dialysis doctor and developer to argue for the use variance.
Dr. Rex Mahnensmith (at right in photo), a doctor who works at but not for DaVita, explained to the board that dialysis is a method of cleaning the blood. Patients sit in a chair while their blood circulates out of their body and into a machine that cleans it. “Spills don’t happen,” Mahnensmith assured the board. Less than a cup of blood is outside of a patient’s body at any one time, he said. The DaVita center also trains people to perform dialysis at home, he said.
Developers have been looking for a site for the dialysis center all over town, to no avail, Mahnensmith said.
Avallone acknowledged that the project would turn people out of their homes. The developer is committed to “working out something so that people will not be disadvantaged.” Avallone did not specify what form that would take.
Tim Sears, a representative of Centerplan, later said the company might help relocate tenants or help with their moving expenses. “We feel some type of obligation,” he said.
Zoning board member David Streever said one of the conditions necessary for the granting of a use variance is that there be no other reasonable use for the site. “There’s already successful housing there,” Streever said.
“You could build a bigger building there to put in 21 units,” Avallone replied. The dialysis center will be smaller than other buildings that could be built by right under the area zoning, he said.
Ten people rose in opposition to the plan. Local Democratic ward committee co-chair Tanya Smith was the first to speak. The center would “impair the essential character of the neighborhood” and “displace long-time residents,” she said. She also raised concerns about air quality worsening as a result of increased traffic.
Anstress Farwell (pictured), head of the New Haven Urban Design League, criticized the plan as out of scale with the neighborhood. Although the building would have gables to make it seem of a piece with neighboring buildings, it would be too big to fit in, she said. Further, the building is oriented not toward the street, but toward a rear parking lot, like a suburban building, she said.
“Nothing about the property would not lend itself to residential development,” Deputy Director of Zoning Tom Talbot said. He said the application does not show hardship, which is a condition of approval of a use variance.
The board voted unanimously to deny the application.