Markeshia Ricks Photo
Marchand: Westville’s “happy about this project, I can tell you.”
Plans to tame high-volume Whalley Avenue traffic that hurries through the center of Westville Village have moved forward by receiving a key approval, as did plans for separated west side bike lanes to downtown.
The approvals came Wednesday night from the City Plan Commission.
Commissioners voted unanimously in support of site plans for improving pedestrian safety in the 3,200-foot stretch of state road between Harrison Street and West Park Avenue that been in the works for three years. Back then, State Rep. Pat Dillon and then-State Sen. Toni Harp successfully pushed for the state to set aside $400,000 to calm the busy thoroughfare.
The project has three main goals: to slow traffic on Whalley Avenue; to make it easier to cross the street in Westville Village; and to define gateways for the commercial village.
The project picked up momentum last September when the city submitted a finalized version of plans that calls for “new raised medians, tree plantings, signage, stripping, handicapped ramps, sidewalks, thermoplastic crosswalks, thermoplastic islands, utilities and curbs.” (Read more about the plans here.)
City Engineer Giovanni Zinn (at left in photo) said that after a lot of back and forth with the state, the city is “extremely close to finalizing all of the tiny minutiae.” He said he hopes to have the project out to bid as early as this spring and have work starting this summer.
Zinn said the medians will be used to create gateways at opposite ends of the village center, and to narrow lanes of the bustling road.
“We’re happy about this project in Westville, I can tell you,” said Westville Alder Adam Marchand.
Marchand, who also is a City Plan Commission member, said many in the community, particularly Dillon and Westville gallery owner Gabriel DaSilva, had come to believe that the state had changed the character of the village center from a pedestrian friendly area to a “superhighway.”
“In many ways we felt it degraded the pedestrian features, and made it feel not like a city, but made it very suburban in character,” he said. Marchand said the traffic-calming measures will help “communicate a different sense of place.”
The plans don’t currently call for bike lanes. Because of the wide shoulders of the road in certain areas, the city is holding on to some hope that they can be added at a later date.
On (Cycle) Track
City of New Haven
The proposed Edgewood Avenue cycletrack.
That would work well with another thumbs up that commissioners gave to the west side of the city Wednesday night, when they approved a plan that would enable the city to accept $1.2 million in grant money from Community Connectivity Program, a new state program “to enhance pedestrian and bicycle connectivity in municipalities.”
New Haven’s Downtown West project, which aims to create a two-way cycletrack (with separated bike lanes) on Edgewood Avenue first and eventually extend bike infrastructure as far out as Southern Connecticut State University, was selected as the first to receive money. (Read more about that here.)
The Board of Alders, which referred the matter to the City Plan Commission, will make the final call on whether to accept the money, which does not require a city match.
Waldorf’s Final Shot
One long-simmering matter in Westville remained unexpectedly up in the air Wednesday night.
Commissioners were expected to make a final decision on the long stalled plan by developer Lawrence Waldorf (pictured) to build a 124-unit elderly housing development in the shadow of West Rock at 1155 Whalley Ave. But commissioners opted to give Waldorf until their February hearing to respond to the latest City Plan staff report, which once again recommends that the commission deny approval of the developer’s site plan and inland wetlands reviews.
The commission has twice denied Waldorf’s plans; he sued the commission after that second rejection. Superior Court Judge Marshall Berger ruled that the commission and developer had to “engage in a full discussion concerning whether the regulations have been satisfied,” before City Plan either approved the application, denied it, or approved it with conditions. (Read more about that here and here.)
Waldorf and City Plan staff have been locked in a tense and sometimes openly contentious struggle over his plans for the site. (Read about the last clash here.) Waldorf’s attorney, Joe Williams, indicated that his client had a problem with receiving the City Plan staff’s report and its memo recommending denial of the site plan less than 24 hours before the commission was scheduled to meet Wednesday.
City Plan Department Director Karyn Gilvarg pointed out that the staff report had not changed substantially. She said in fact the first 15 pages of the 17-page report remain the same, and Waldorf and his team had access to them for months. “Ninety-nine point nine percent who come before the commission don’t get a draft report the day before the hearing,” she said.
Marchand recommend that the commission allow Waldorf to submit a response to the latest iteration of the staff report. He suggested that City Plan staffers not submit an updated report, but rather they talk through any issues they have at the meeting and the commission vote. His colleagues agreed.