Aliyya Swaby Photo
Farwell: Stretch the border to Grand.
With the influx of new housing in Wooster Square and downtown, will the city alter existing bus routes? What will development look like near the highway on Water Street? How will the former C. Cowles & Co. factory building be integrated into the neighborhood?
A “steering committee” of neighbors and developers met to begin discussing some of these questions in the quest of what is known as “T.O.D.,” or transit-oriented development, which maximizes access from homes and workplaces and stores to public transportation.
The city recently received $125,000 from the state to figure out how to promote walking and biking, and redevelop “underused” properties, especially with the incoming of a projected 1,500 new apartments to the Wooster Square neighborhood.
Click here to read the application.
The Board of Alders approved the city’s request to apply for the Office of Policy and Management grant, after the administration applied in mid-November. The grant application included a $15,000 city match.
Mike Piscitelli, the city’s deputy economic development administrator, led the first committee meeting last week, along with city staffer Matt Smith and Alders Aaron Greenberg and Abby Roth.
“There’s a lot of work with the Office of Policy and Management to actually get the funds moving,” Piscitelli (pictured) said. “This is a good place to start.” The committee will meet every month over the next year.
The details of how to actually create the final planning study are very much in the works. “We could put the whole thing out to a consultant … or we could do it in-house,” Piscitelli told the committee. He showed members past examples, including the “Hill-to-Downtown” community plan, the result of a year-long collaborative community effort to figure out development around Church Street South and Union Station. The process for that study cost $1 million.
The first part of the study revolves around land use and transportation for the Wooster Square and Water Street districts. The application notes that the $400 million-plus LiveWorkLearnPlay plan for the old Coliseum site, along with housing complexes in the works at the old Comcast building on Chapel Street and on a former industrial site around the corner on Union Street, are projected to bring 1,500 new apartments to a concentrated stretch of town near the train station.
The second part concerns the shift to increasing the use of mass transit, especially around Downtown Crossing, the site of an ongoing effort to fill in the Route 34 Connector mini-highway-to-nowhere linking I‑95/I‑91 to the west side of town. The project is reconnecting the Hill with Downtown and paving the way for new development projects like the in-progress 100 College St. Alexion office tower as well as the upcoming LiveWorkLearnPlay project. Click here to see about how the city plans to rework the streets — part of a challenge to enable people to walk and bike safely rather than cram the streets with cars. Right now state estimates show the number of cars traveling that area during the peak morning hour rising from the current 4,600 to 6,280.
At Wednesday’s meeting, some wondered whether the focal districts were large enough. Anstress Farwell (pictured at the top of the story) of the Urban Design League suggested that the borders of the study stretch the length of Olive Street and include part of Grand Avenue, since much of the traffic comes through Wooster Square on those streets. After a Wooster Square neighbor was struck by a car on Olive Street, city and traffic staff led the community in a brainstorming session to develop traffic safety quick fixes.
Werrell (left): Existing neighborhood sites “not being maintained”
Neighbors have been petitioning for a stop sign at the intersection of Olive and Court, the most recent of various suggestions to decrease accidents at that corner, said Alex Werrell. He suggested the city extend its boundaries as far up Olive as possible, to address those traffic issues. Werrell said he was “concerned” about the neighborhood’s expansion when “it seems like what’s already there isn’t being maintained.”
Piscitelli said those areas also “merit studying,” but that they comprise a different set of challenges, likely for another study — especially development on Grand Avenue. He said traffic safety throughout the neighborhood will likely be addressed in this planning study.
Neighbors pointed out specific problem sites that would make development in the neighborhoods more difficult. For example, land is available for only commercial or residential development on one side of Water Street, since the other site “abuts the highway,” Farwell said.
And she cited “Intersection Impossible,” a dangerous area for pedestrians where State and Fair Streets meet, as another potential focal point of the study.
The committee will pull out four or five sites for “more specific urban design work,” Piscitelli said. “We don’t have a huge budget for this. We have a decent budget.” Past planning studies in New Haven have been used for community-based development, attraction of investments and applications for state or federal funding, he said. They will bring in community input for the study in the spring.
87 Union developer Noel Petra and PMC Property Group manager Jeanne Mauri (pictured) represented local commercial interests in Wednesday’s meeting.
The next committee meeting is March 17 at 7 p.m, after the management team meeting.