Paul Bass Photo
Faster than you could call “Honey, get me rewrite!” the New Haven Register got a zoning break Tuesday night.
The newspaper received the final approval it needs to try to sell its largely empty Long Wharf plant to a retail store rather than a factory.
The approval came from the Board of Aldermen, which voted unanimously to rezone the paper’s 13.1 acres on Sargent drive from light industrial to a a “general business” district.
No one on the board objected.
Before the vote, Hill Alderwoman Delores Colon (pictured above conferring with city Chief Administrative Officer Rob Smuts before Tuesday night’s board meeting) explained how the paper’s execs worked hard to include the community in its decisions. They met privately with aldermen and attended neighborhood community management meetings. (Read about that here, here and here.)
“The managers and the owners of this building have done their due diligence. They’ve done everything they can to help us understand” the reasons for the zone change, she said.
Since outsourcing its printing operation to Hartford and shrinking the rest of its staff, the company has sought to sell the building and move into a smaller, centrally located “digital newsroom” downtown with a community emphasis.
But it has had trouble selling its plant to a factory owner, as called for under zoning regulations. Too many similar properties in the region are already on the market.
A City Plan staff report noted that an unwelcome long vacancy loomed on Long Wharf without a zone change. It also noted that Long Wharf has already been changing with individual zoning exceptions for a theater, a hotel, a restaurant. This zone change merely normalizes a transition that has already been well underway, the staff argued.