In Angelo Reyes’ vision, the Grand Avenue of tomorrow will be a destination like “a Cape Cod, a Mystic, a Fairfield, a Stamford … with vibrancy and diversity.”
Reyes (pictured), a Fair Haven developer, made his prediction following a Wednesday night meeting of the City Plan Commission. The Grand Avenue Village Association (GAVA) won unanimous approval at the meeting to go ahead with its plan to have Grand Avenue designated as a special services district (SSD).
The plan would make Grand Avenue the fourth SSD in New Haven, allowing it to raise money from area property owners to pay for projects like street cleaning and graffiti removal. (Previous NHI coverage on the proposal here, and on Reyes here and here.)
The proposed ordinance includes 217 properties that front on Grand Avenue between the Mill and Quinnipiac rivers. The district would have a board of commissioners empowered to set an annual levy for property owners in the SSD. Gabriela Campos, director of GAVA, predicts that the levy would equal a property tax rate of one mill.
An SSD designation would give GAVA “a launching pad” for further neighborhood developments, Campos said before the City Plan meeting. She explained that GAVA is currently paying for Grand Avenue street cleaning and beautifying with grant money, funds that she expects will dry up in the current economy.
“Future grant funding is going to go to little kids’ after-school programs before it’ll go to street-cleaning,” Campos (pictured) said. “But if there’s no cleaning then those little kids won’t have a safe place to play.”
GAVA’s current grants will take the organization through June, Campos said. After that she hopes that the SSD will have cleared, allowing GAVA to raise cleaning funds from Grand Avenue property owners.
To be enacted, the SSD would need over 50 percent support from Grand Avenue property owners. A proposal based on self-imposed taxation is an ambitious one in the current economic climate, but Campos said that the plan is finding “overwhelming support, despite the economy.”
“The challenge is going to be the people that aren’t on Grand Avenue as much,” Campos said after the meeting, referring to absentee landlords that own property in Fair Haven.
“This is a bad time for anything,” said Angelo Reyes. “But we’re not about to let anyone stop the wheels turning.”
He said that a levy of one mill would be the equivalent of a dollar a day for most property owners. For Reyes, who said that he owns $6 million of property on Grand Avenue, “Even if I’m paying 10 dollars a day, it’s still worth it. It improves the equity, the scenery.”
Reyes said that he has been working with other major Grand Avenue property owners to shape the area, deciding which businesses to bring in. He mentioned that the avenue has enough laundromats, and that “one Mexican restaurant every quarter mile” is plenty.
“The goal is to keep it as an old village,” Reyes said. “I would prefer it to be a Latino district, but I’m not going to stop anyone positive from coming in.”
The next steps for the Grand Avenue SSD are a public hearing and vote from the Board of Alderman in January, then a property owner referendum in March.