by | Dec 6, 2021 7:45 pm | Comments (45)
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Protesters inside City Hall before vote.
Pro-Dominguez top cops at City Hall for the vote.
The Board of Alders resoundingly rejected Renee Dominguez as the city’s new permanent police chief Monday night, praising her as a person and a cop but saying she has failed to present a plan to move the department forward.
Continue reading ‘Alders Vote Down Police Chief Appointment’
by | Dec 6, 2021 1:30 pm | Comments (13)
RJ DEVELOPMENT & ADVISORS RENDERING
Planned 176-unit apartment complex at Ashmun, Canal, and Henry St.
Plans to redevelop a long-vacant Science Park lot grew in size to 176 proposed apartments — and won an initial recommendation to do so.
Continue reading ‘Apartment Plan Grows For Science Park Project’
by | Dec 5, 2021 6:31 pm | Comments (17)
Staff photos
Acting Chief Dominguez, Sgt. Louis DeCrescenzo: Mutual support.
A police supervisor summoned the rank and file to show up en masse at City Hall Monday night to convince the Board of Alders to make Renee Dominguez the city’s permanent police chief.
by | Dec 2, 2021 3:43 pm | Comments (6)
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YNHH’s West Pavilion turnaround at Park and Howard, soon to be a temporary emergency room.
Yale New Haven Hospital won city permission to build a temporary 35-bed emergency room to accommodate a coming spike in Covid and flu cases — pending aldermanic approval that the six-month project won’t affect parking in the medical district.
Continue reading ‘Plans OK’d For 35-Bed Temporary Emergency Room For Anticipated Covid/Flu Spike’
by | Dec 2, 2021 9:49 am | Comments (12)
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LCI chief Arlevia Samuel: Trying to “bring transparency to LLCs.”
A plan to put a face — or at least a human name — on landlords registered as limited liability companies (LLCs) moved ahead, as part of an effort to improve the city’s residential licensing program by tying sometimes inscrutable companies to “natural persons.”
by | Nov 30, 2021 4:04 pm | Comments (14)
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Tenant Union member Enid Mendez (center) with Democratic Socialists of America organizer Luke Melonakos-Harrison.
A Quinnipiac Meadows tenant union and its local lefty organizers have turned their sights on City Hall in their latest effort to boost low-income renters’ collective bargaining power.
by | Nov 29, 2021 3:59 pm | Comments (9)
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Newly appointed TT&P director Sandeep Aysola and LCI director Arlevia Samuel at City Hall on Monday.
The mayor has tapped the city’s acting Livable City Initiative (LCI) director to take over as the permanent head of City Hall’s neighborhood development and housing code enforcement department—and has picked a local transportation consultant to lead Transportation, Traffic & Parking (TT&P).
Continue reading ‘Elicker Picks New LCI, Transportation Directors’
by | Nov 29, 2021 12:07 pm | Comments (18)
File photos / images
Proposed tax breaks advanced for (clockwise from top left): Beacon’s planned new apts. at State & Chapel, Fairbank Apts on Ferry, Valley Street redevelopment, Hemingway St. apts.
Four tax break deals for four different affordable housing projects have won approval — for now.
Continue reading ‘“Affordable” Projects’ Tax Breaks Advance’
by | Nov 24, 2021 1:21 pm | Comments (36)
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Mayor Elicker: Mask mandate will remain in place.
As Covid cases are on the rise across Connecticut and the country, the mayor plans to keep New Haven’s mask mandate in place in a bid to curb transmission.
by | Nov 23, 2021 2:27 pm | Comments (11)
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Regina Rush-Kittle, tapped by the mayor to serve as city CAO.
Wowed by her resume and decades-long commitment to public service, alders advanced the appointment of an ex-Marine, state trooper, police officer, and state emergency management deputy commissioner to a top City Hall “coordinator” role.
Continue reading ‘Ex-Marine City Hall “Coordinator” Nomination Advances’
by | Nov 23, 2021 9:57 am | Comments (17)
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Acting Chief Dominguez: Completion of term fast-tracked.
Alders grilled Acting Police Chief Renee Dominguez on the police department’s lack of diversity in its upper ranks. Public safety colleagues praised her for her integrity, work ethic, and compassion.
Then alders fast-tracked a decision by the full Board of Alders on whether or not to confirm Dominguez as the city’s first-ever female permanent police chief — for a term that would last all of two months.
by | Nov 19, 2021 3:20 pm | Comments (5)
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590 Orange St., cleared to become apartments.
A New York City-based developer has won approval for plans to convert a century-old church building into seven new apartments in East Rock.
Continue reading ‘East Rock Church-To-Housing Conversion OK’d’
by | Nov 18, 2021 11:06 am | Comments (3)
Google Maps photo
The shopping strip at 1330 Whalley Ave. where Kenneth Redding has pitched opening an “assembly hall” (in the right corner commercial space above).
A proposed BYOB nightclub on Upper Whalley hit another administrative roadblock Wednesday, as City Plan Commissioners unanimously recommended rejecting the venue’s request to share parking with its shopping strip neighbors.
Continue reading ‘City Plan Rejects Upper Whalley Nightclub Proposal’
by | Nov 18, 2021 9:31 am | Comments (20)
Beacon Communities
Proposed housing slated to replace parking at 300 State lot. (Building on left would be new. Building on right currently exists.)
A Boston-based affordable housing developer has won city approval to build 76 new apartments — and only three new parking spaces — in the Ninth Square.
by | Nov 17, 2021 12:04 pm | Comments (86)
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High Street between Chapel and Elm: So long cars.
Mayor Elicker and Yale President Salovey at Wednesday’s presser.
Yale and the city announced a deal Wednesday to increase the university’s voluntary contributions by a total of $52 million over the next six years, while creating a Yale-managed pedestrian plaza on High Street and establishing a new “inclusive growth” center to pursue town-gown fiber optic or green-energy projects.
Continue reading ‘Yale Ups Annual City Payments By $10M; High Street Block Will Close To Cars’
by | Nov 16, 2021 3:56 pm | Comments (3)
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346 and 350 Grand Ave., which the city plans to buy and convert into new owner-occupied housing.
Monday night’s full Board of Alders meeting.
Alders overwhelmingly signed off on the city purchasing a medical office building and a vacant three-family house on Grand Avenue for up to $460,000 — to further plans to convert three adjacent Fair Haven brownstones into six units of new housing.
Continue reading ‘City Cleared To Buy Vacant House, Office Building In Fair Haven’
by | Nov 16, 2021 1:13 pm | Comments (6)
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Monday night’s full Board of Alders meeting.
Alders unanimously approved a recommendation that the city’s community management teams use parliamentary procedure when running their meetings and that they develop standardized training — without giving any specific guidance on what that training should consist of.
Continue reading ‘Alders “Recommend” Management Team “Training”’
by | Nov 16, 2021 9:59 am | Comments (3)
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Rendering of redeveloped Union Station.
On the same day that President Biden signed a $1 trillion infrastructure bill targeted at improving the country’s transportation networks, the Board of Alder granted final approval to a three-part plan to redevelop Union Station to include 600 new parking spaces, an “intermodal center” for bus riders, and improved retail options.
Continue reading ‘Alders Approve 55-Year Union Station Deal’
by | Nov 16, 2021 9:27 am | Comments (10)
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Rendering of new apartments planned for Long Wharf.
Thomas Breen photo
Monday night’s Board of Alders meeting.
Alders unanimously approved plans to build up to 500 new apartments on Long Wharf after arguing that the city’s waterfront should be developed and protected — not abandoned — amid climate change.
by | Nov 15, 2021 4:14 pm | Comments (29)
File photos
Affordable Housing Commissioners (clockwise from top left): Karen DuBois-Walton, Claudette Kidd, Elias Estabrook, Anika Singh Lemar, Rebecca Corbett, Jaime Myers-McPhail.
A new report from the city’s Affordable Housing Commission has surfaced a divide among its members: Will “inclusionary zoning” do more to help, or hurt, local low-income renters?
Continue reading ‘Housing Commission Divided On “Inclusion”’
by | Nov 12, 2021 11:36 am | Comments (7)
Alders-Elect (clockwise from top left) Sal Punzo, Alex Guzhnay, Devin Avshalom-Smith, Sarah Miller, Shafiq Abdussabur.
(Analysis) A power vacuum is opening in New Haven. Will newly elected alders help fill it?
by | Nov 11, 2021 12:22 pm | Comments (36)
File photos
Testifiers in IZ debate, top row: Lillie Chambers, Darren Seid, Kelcy Steele. Middle row: Anstress Farwell, Karen DuBois-Walton, Ben Trachten. Bottom row: Jaime Myers-McPhail, Myra Smith, Elias Estabrook.
In the view of people who spent hours offering testimony, the Elicker Administration’s plan to promote “inclusionary zoning” is …
One of the most progressive land-use updates in the nation?
Too generous to developers, and too stingy to low-income renters?
Just another tool in the affordable-housing toolbox?
Bureaucratic overreach that will silence the city’s building boom?
All of the above?
by | Nov 10, 2021 4:21 pm | Comments (10)
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Rendering of redeveloped Union Station.
What’s the timeline for Union Station’s planned redevelopment?
Will local businesses get preferential treatment in the transit hub’s new retail spaces?
And how will the massive new federal infrastructure bill help make Union Station a better place to travel to and from?
by | Nov 10, 2021 11:04 am | Comments (12)
Thomas Breen photos
Newly tapped CAO Regina Rush-Kittle and Police Chief Renee Dominguez at Wednesday’s presser.
Police and firefighters cheer on the new appointments at City Hall.
Mayor Justin Elicker has decided he wants Renee Dominguez to serve as the city’s first-ever female permanent police chief. And he tapped an ex-marine and state trooper to serve as a top City Hall aide overseeing public safety.
Continue reading ‘Elicker Picks Dominguez For Permanent Police Chief’
by | Nov 9, 2021 9:43 pm | Comments (13)
Paul Bass Photo
LCI’s Arlevia Samuel, Mark WIlson, and Raymond Jackson hear Brenda Olmedo’s concerns Tuesday evening in the Edgewood Park gazebo.
The people who run Brenda Olmedo’s government came to a park near her home to hear how to do better. Olmedo was ready with a four-year-old complaint.