by | Sep 24, 2020 1:01 pm | Comments (7)
Thomas Breen photos
The undeveloped development site at 1155 Whalley Ave.
A Maryland-based developer has requested a five-year extension for plans to build 124 senior apartments in West Hills — a project, and an underlying property, that he now hopes to sell to some other builder who may have better luck getting it done.
Continue reading ‘Senior-Housing Builder Seeks 5 More Years’
by | Sep 23, 2020 1:20 pm | Comments (7)
Thomas Breen Photo
Neal-Sanjurjo updates Newhallville neighbors on development plans.
Serena Neal-Sanjurjo is resigning as chief of New Haven’s neighborhoods anti-blight agency after expanding its mission to promote affordable homeownership and job-creation.
by | Sep 22, 2020 3:12 pm | Comments (16)
Paul Bass / Thomas Breen photos
Newly approved commissioners Anika Singh Lemar and Alexandra Daum: Parking minimums thwart housing.
What’s one surefire way to increase the city’s housing supply, boost the local tax base, and incentivize the development of more affordable housing?
According to two newly confirmed city commissioners, the answer lies in part in reforming — or even scrapping entirely — the city zoning code’s minimum parking requirements.
by | Sep 21, 2020 9:30 pm | Comments (28)
Thomas Breen file photo
Scenes from the Columbus Day Parade.
Good-bye, Columbus Day. Hello, Italian Heritage Day.
Starting this year, the city-recognized holiday on the second Monday in October will no longer be named after the 15th-century European explorer whom many Italian-Americans celebrated as a heroic, cultural icon, and whom critics lambasted as an enslaver of Indigenous peoples and an emblem of violent white supremacy.
Continue reading ‘It’s Official: “Italian Heritage Day” Replaces “Columbus Day” In New Haven’
by | Sep 21, 2020 9:19 pm | Comments (11)
Lucy Gellman Photo
Mike Lawlor.
Mike Lawlor, who helped Connecticut change its approach to criminal justice, has been tapped to help New Haven figure out how best to police itself, as a member of the city’s Board of Police Commissioners.
Meanwhile, New Haven has new requirements for its commissioners.
Continue reading ‘“2nd Chance” Lawlor Tapped For Local Role’
by | Sep 15, 2020 9:15 pm | Comments (0)
Thomas Breen file photo
Marcus Paca, on the campaign stump in 2017.
A federal appeals court has upheld a lower court’s decision that former Mayor Toni Harp did not discriminate against former Labor Relations Director Marcus Paca when she fired him in 2016 for alleged insubordination.
by | Sep 15, 2020 12:25 pm | Comments (14)
DANIELA BRIGHENTI PHOTO
High-schoolers help prepare the Escape before work stopped.
The perennially-stalled and never-opened “Escape” youth homeless shelter lurched towards its formal demise at a city government hearing Monday night.
by | Sep 9, 2020 9:25 am | Comments (18)
Thomas Breen photo
The former Welch Annex School at 49 Prince St.
Alders unanimously granted Stamford developer Randy Salvatore a 17-year tax break for his planned conversion of the derelict former Welch Annex School in the Hill into 30 affordable apartments.
Continue reading ‘Welch Annex Apartments Catch A (Tax) Break’
by | Sep 9, 2020 9:25 am | Comments (5)
Thomas Breen photo
Budget chief Gormany, ed board prez Rivera at announcment.
A newly published financial report shows that the city ended last fiscal year with a $1.9 million budget surplus, even as Covid-19 interrupted just about every aspect of city life starting last spring.
by | Sep 7, 2020 5:12 pm | Comments (19)
Thomas Breen photo
Picking up the bus, near the Green.
Don’t expect those promised new express busways or mini-hubs anytime soon for New Haven’s beleaguered public transit system.
But fewer bus stops? Tweaks to service times and convoluted routes? Those more incremental fixes may be on a closer horizon — pending state budget and staff priorities.
by | Sep 4, 2020 2:04 pm | Comments (8)
Paul Bass file photo
Police, firefighters, and paramedics response to 2018 K-2 poisonings on the Green.
A lead proponent of City Hall’s planned new social work-centered mobile crisis response team kicked off his citywide tour of the proposed program with a double-edged reassurance.
The initiative will neither be a magic bullet, nor an avenue to “defund the police.”
Continue reading ‘City Hall Pitches CMT On New Crisis Response Team’
by | Sep 4, 2020 8:12 am | Comments (16)
Allan Appel file photo
Outside Murphy Road Recycling’s plant in the Annex.
Murphy Road Recycling is back — with updated plans to expand its Wheeler Street recycling plant to allow for the handling of household garbage.
City environmentalists are none too pleased, and once again working to stop the plans in their tracks.
Continue reading ‘Garbage Recycling Battle Redux In The Annex’
by | Sep 3, 2020 12:21 pm | Comments (16)
Zoom images
Quinnipiac Meadows alder Gerald Antunes at Tuesday’s hearing.
Police commissioners would have to ride-along with an officer before they start providing oversight, according to a new proposed training requirement that received a favorable recommendation from an aldermanic committee.
Continue reading ‘Training Mandate Advances For Police Commissioners’
by | Sep 2, 2020 4:24 pm | Comments (12)
Thomas Breen photo
Neal-Sanjurjo and Elicker announce new rental assistance program.
Low-income tenants struggling to make rent during the Covid-19 crisis have a new local lifeline — thanks to the launch of a city rental assistance and eviction prevention program targeted at helping vulnerable families stay housed during the pandemic.
by | Sep 2, 2020 12:26 pm | Comments (23)
Thomas Breen photo
Kensington Park, as a park. Below: Soon to become apartments?
THE COMMUNITY BUILDERS, INC.
An affordable housing developer’s plans to build 15 apartments atop Kensington Park moved ahead — on the condition that the developer invest $80,000 in improving a nearby park in Dwight, and that the city set aside a comparable amount of new public park space in Newhallville.
by | Aug 31, 2020 9:56 pm | Comments (2)
Maya McFadden Photo
Mayor Elicker presents Williams with a key to the city.
Local boxing champ Tramaine “The Mighty Midget” Williams took home an honorary key to the city, in recognition of the 27-year-old Hill resident’s nationally-renowned athletic achievements.
by | Aug 31, 2020 11:37 am | Comments (3)
New Youth and Recreation Department Director Gwendolyn Busch Williams.
Gwendolyn Busch Williams, who has worked in youth services for City Hall for over a decade, has been tapped to lead the city’s newly reorganized Youth and Recreation Department.
Continue reading ‘Busch Williams Tapped As Youth & Rec Director’
by | Aug 24, 2020 6:31 pm | Comments (15)
Thomas Breen photo
The current lot at 1471 Chapel.
A local landlord won city approval to convert the site of a former four-family house into a surface parking lot in … wait, what?
That wasn’t a typo. At a time when parking lots across the city are bursting into new housing, this lot has flipped that script, thanks to a restrictive underlying zoning code.
Continue reading ‘Parking Replaces Housing, Thanks To Zoning Rules’
by | Aug 21, 2020 11:05 am | Comments (1)
Urbane NewHaven
A rendering of the proposed townhouses.
City plans to sell a vacant Jocelyn Square lot to a developer interested in building six new two-family houses advanced — even as city staff cautioned that the proposed development will likely require zoning relief.
Continue reading ‘Affordable Mill River Townhomes Deal Advances’
by | Aug 20, 2020 8:01 am | Comments (10)
Google Maps / 98 Olive LLC
New apartments coming soon to (clockwise from top left) 109 Court, 98 Olive, 192 Fitch, and 904 Quinnipiac.
New Haven’s market-rate apartment boom continued apace as four different projects that would add 51 new units of housing across town — including in former ground-floor commercial and office spaces — won key city sign-offs.
by | Aug 20, 2020 8:01 am | Comments (16)
Thomas Breen / Allan Appel photos
New Haven Chief Reyes and YPD Chief Higgins.
The chiefs of police for both Yale and New Haven defended the university’s police department as a critical “partner” in providing public safety in New Haven, during an aldermanic committee hearing focused on the inner workings and proper role of the local private police force.
by | Aug 18, 2020 8:08 pm | Comments (26)
Paul Bass file photo
Police and medics attend to people poisoned by a bad batch of K2 on the Green.
Social workers, mental health experts, and medical professionals would respond to certain 911 calls as part of a new community crisis response team envisioned by City Hall.
Continue reading ‘New Program Centers Social Workers, Not Cops’
by | Aug 12, 2020 3:15 pm | Comments (17)
FRAC Chair Mohit Agrawal at Tuesday night’s meeting.
City finance staff is once again considering a controversial idea for how to address hundreds of millions of dollars in unfunded city pension liabilities: Borrowing in bulk with pension obligation bonds (POBs).
by | Aug 10, 2020 9:53 am | Comments (16)
Daniel Garcia helps dad submit ballot at box set up on Orange.
Laura Glesby
Jerry Poole casts his ballot a second time; Democrats and Republicans can still cast absentee ballots Monday outside 200 Orange St.
Jerry Poole ended up voting twice — to make sure his ballot was counted once.
by | Aug 7, 2020 4:30 pm | Comments (6)
Thomas Breen Photo
Will they be marching next in an Italian Heritage Parade?
In the mid-20th century, Italian immigrants Luisa DeLauro and Linda DiPaola Saracco operated sewing machines in a dress factory at State and Chapel Streets.
Thursday night, their politician daughters worked together to change Columbus Day in New Haven to “Italian Heritage Day.”