Judge Tosses Lawsuits Aimed At Stopping Wooster Square Projects

A Superior Court judge wasn’t impressed with the legal arguments put forward by a landlord looking to stop competitors from opening new housing developments on the western edge of Wooster Square.

The judge, Thomas J. Corrandino, Monday dismissed five separate lawsuits filed by Philadelphia-based PMC Property Group aimed at overturning public approvals for a 299-unit market-rate apartment complex on industrial/commercial land at 87 Union St.; and a 223-unit new community at the site of old Comcast Building on Chapel Street and a lot across the street.

PMC, which has come under fire for its stewardship of downtown apartment buildings, owns the rental complex in the former Strouse-Adler Smoothie factory between Olive and Court streets. It filed the five lawsuits through a limited-liability corporation called 78 Olive Street Partners, through which it owns the Smoothie complex.

City officials welcomed the two new projects, saying they’ll add to the city’s tax base and bring new vitality to a barren stretch dividing Wooster Square form downtown. Both projects won needed regulatory approvals. But the PMC lawsuits have tied them up for over a year.

The developers can’t yet get started, though. First they have to wait to see if PMC will appeal Judge Corradino’s rulings. PMC has 20 days to decide. Its attorney, Marjorie Shansky, declined comment Tuesday. (Roderick Williams of the city’s corporation counsel’s office handled the case for the defendants.)

Local developer Noel Petra, who put together the plan for the new residential community at 87 Union between Olive and Union streets, welcomed Monday’s rulings.

“I felt like it was inevitable. It was just a matter of time. We had the full support of the city. We had the full support of the community. It was just one group standing in our way,” Petra said. ​“By the time it’s said and done, it’s probably two years of tax revenue” totaling in the millions that the city will have lost from his project and the second one, planned by Norwalk-based Spinnaker Real Estate Partners.

Not ​“Aggrieved”

Two of the five PMC suits targeted Petra’s project. The suits named Petra’s company as a defendant along with the Board of Alders and City Plan Commission.

Corradino ruled that PMC did not have standing as an ​“aggrieved” party to press those complaints because its property doesn’t abut the project or fall within 100 feet of it. He said case law clearly establishes those two prongs. PMC had argued that the Petra project is ​“inextricably linked” to the other project, which does abut its property, should it should be considered fair game for a lawsuit.

“This case underlines the principle that under the classic aggrievement tests its two-prong requirement must … not be watered down by using the close proximity issue as a means to elevate generalized fear or apprehensions about traffic contention, reduction in property values etc.,” Corradino wrote in his decision.

Even if it had standing, Corradino disagreed with PMC’s arguments that the City Plan Commission failed to enforce the zoning ordinance and made ​“arbitrary and illegal” decisions in approving special permit and site plan applications for the project. He was unmoved by testimony from PMC’s property manager, Jeanne Mauri, that new traffic sparked by the project would produce congestion at the cut-through she uses in the Strouse-Adler driveway to avoid a traffic light on Chapel Street. And he rejected an argument that he should block Petra’s plan because it would harm PMC’s property values at Strouse-Adler.

“There has been no appraisal evidence introduced as to a decline in the value of 78 Olive Street if this project were allowed to go forward. Beyond that it certainly cannot be argued that the decline in value will occur because 78 Olive Street will lose tenants to the new property — this is merely a roundabout way of advancing a claim of a competitor which cannot be a basis for classical aggrievement.”

Here are the judge’s rulings in the 87 Union cases.

Zoned In

Corradino did find that PMC had ​“aggrieved” standing to challenge the Spinnaker project at the old Comcast building and the lot across the street. He nevertheless dismissed all three suits against that project, which named Spinnaker, Mayor Toni Harp, Comcast, and the Board of Alders as defendants.

He rejected attorney Shansky’s argument, supported by some other speakers at public meetings, that the decision to change the property from a Business District BA to a Business District BD‑1 one constituted ​“illegal spot zoning” that also allowed for tall buildings out of scale with the neighborhood.

Defining spot zoning as a decision that confers private gain for a small private interest at the expense of the public good, Corradino wrote that he found ​“the zone change … to be in harmony with the comprehensive plan for the good of the community as a whole.” The addition of apartments in the business zone extends an already existing mix right across the street in Wooster Square, he argued. And it fits in with calls in the city’s Comprehensive Plan to promote more commercial mixed uses and ​“higher density residential” ​“transit-oriented developments” near downtown, where people can walk to work or take the Shoreline East train. He said the project also ​“perfectly” fits the plan’s call ​“to establish a so-called transition between the downtown area and historic Wooster Square area.” That would replace, he said, ​“a largely abandoned nondescript brick Comcast building” next to what ​“one opponent kindly described as an underutilized lot.”

Corradino also rejected PMC’s argument that the City Plan-approved site plan paves the way for excessive new stormwater runoff rates or creates a ​“disturbance … of predevelopment natural natural hydrologic conditions let alone a minimal disturbance.”

In one of the three decisions, he took exception to what he characterized as a selective, incomplete citation of a subparagraph (number 7) in Section 60 of the city’s zoning ordinance, which calls for developments to have an ​“onsite infiltration system.” The Spinnaker plan lacks one.

Corradino said PMC’s brief omitted five key words to its citation of that subparagraph: ​“to the maximum extent feasible.” That full text, in addition to the full text of Section 60, makes clear that that onsite system would be one of several ways to accomplish a broader stated ​“mandate to control pollutants, minimize contamination, and minimize and trap floating material which may be pathogens.” Which, he wrote, the Spinnaker plan does. He also cited an expert report submitted by the defendant that characterized an onsite infiltration system as not feasible because ​“the site is entirely urban fill, which is traditionally unacceptable for infiltration practices.” The judge agreed with the report’s conclusion that the plan’s on-site stormwater management control measures will prevent any added stormwater runoff.

That’s all the fine print. The big picture: New Haven’s plans to rebuild the no-man’s land between Wooster Square and downtown appears back on track, pending a possible appeal.

Here are the judge’s rulings in the Spinnaker cases.