Commissioners Slow Yale Parking Quest

Before Yale razes a building at the juncture of Dixwell Avenue and Goffe Street to create another parking lot, it will need to give neighbors a chance to weigh in.

That was the upshot of a decision made Wednesday night by the City Plan Commission.

Yale plans to put a 60-space surface parking lot on land it owns at 24, 40 Dixwell Ave. and at 49 Goffe St. Right now the parcels are home to the former UPS Store, which moved across the street, a gravel lot and another empty lot. The lot will include at least two spaces for tour buses to park, and will be a public parking lot.

The university can construct the lot by right, but it needs the City Plan Commission to sign off on how it has proposed that the lot be designed and constructed.

City Plan staff recommended that commissioners approve the design with the condition that a ​“bound and conformed set of signed and sealed site plans, including updated lighting and photometric sheets” be submitted.

A team of an attorney, an architect and an engineer representing the university presented a site plan to the City Plan Commission at City Hall Wednesday night. Rather than approve it, commissioners unanimously voted to hold off on making a decisions until university officials share their plans with the Dixwell community and get some input.

“What neighborhood is that area in?” Commissioner Leslie Radcliffe asked the university’s representatives Wednesday night. The pop quiz question was a test that the reps failed. They didn’t know that the triangle shaped land starts in the Dixwell neighborhood.

“My next question is: Have you met with the neighborhood management team of that particular area? Because that is something that we do encourage Yale and others to do to get input on how the particular land is being used and how it might benefit the neighborhood,” she said.

Radcliffe said she found it interesting that just around the bend on Elm Street the university has plans to eliminate a parking lot to build graduate-student apartments and storefronts.

Prior to making the decision to table further discussion about the new Dixwell-Goffe parking lot, commissioners unanimously supported the site plan for that Elm Street project, to build new graduate housing.

“Who is this parking lot going to serve?” Radcliffe asked. ​“Is it going to serve the neighborhood? I don’t think there’s too much retail on the that end of the Dixwell neighborhood, so it must be for the other end, Broadway, Yale, the shops and Payne Whitney gym.”

Yale has purchased most of the properties on the block that extends west from the Dixwell-Goffe juncture to Webster Street. It has not revealed its long-term plans for that stretch; the university has been extending its commercial reach from Broadway into the Dixwell neighborhood.

Attorney Joseph Hammer assured the commissioners that the lot would be open to the public. He said hat he wasn’t certain that university officials had met with members of the Dixwell management team.

Sensing that the window was closing on an approval during the commission’s only February meeting, Hammer tried a little pleading, pointing out that it is possible that Yale officials had already met with representatives of the neighborhood.

“I fully understand the process,” he said of commission’s desire for community input. ​“But with all do respect to that process, this is an ​‘as of right’ use in the district. We would hope that you would act favorably on this tonight and we would continue to speak to people in the area.”

Commission Chair Ed Mattison expressed wariness of demanding that university officials meet with neighbors because ultimately the commission has the job of approving or rejecting the plans. Though he called the plans ​“not very imaginative” land use, he suggested that Yale would meet with neighbors without the commission forcing them to do so.

“I don’t think they’re going to pull a fast one on us and say, ​‘We’ve already got our approval,’” he said.

Commissioner and Westville Alder Adam Marchand said that the commission wouldn’t be delegating its decision making authority by giving the community an opportunity to weigh in on the proposed use of the land.

“It is certainly within our power to table the item,” he said. ​“We have ability say that this is not the use we really want here and that we would like to stimulate a discussion between the university and the community, and get the community’s vision for that land. It might still result in parking lot being installed.”

Radcliffe argued that nothing much would be lost to the university by taking the time to meet with members of the community.

“I think if there is no need for any changes after you’ve met with the community management team, then probably it will be a simple as voting at the next City Plan meeting,” she said.

Hammer asked commissioners for a few minutes to call his contacts at Yale to see if they had spoken with officials from the neighborhood. He returned to say that in fact, conversations had been held with Dixwell Alder Jeanette Morrison and Dwight Alder Frank Douglass.

“Is that sufficient?” Mattison asked.

“It’s not,” Radcliffe said. She pointed out that alders are members of the management team, but they don’t make decisions for the community without the input of the management team. She said from a quick text message with others who serve on the management team, she learned that people had not heard about the plans to create a parking lot.

Now they’ll get the chance.