by | Jun 28, 2024 3:10 pm | Comments (33)
Thomas Breen file photo
Compassionate son Liam Brennan: ADU? YIMBY!
Liam Brennan’s elderly parents will be able to live just steps away from their grandchildren — while maintaining the independence of residing in their own detached home — now that the city’s zoning board has approved the conversion of the former mayoral candidate’s backyard garage into a two-story accessory dwelling unit (aka “ADU”).
by | Jun 28, 2024 10:20 am | Comments (0)
Thomas Breen file photo
At November's launch of Overdose Prevention Program.
A recent pair of resignations has left the city looking to fill two vacancies in a four-person program designed to combat overdoses by building relationships with people who use drugs and guiding them towards safe housing, medical care, and other supportive services.
Continue reading ‘OD Prevention Workers Sought After 2 Resignations’
by | Jun 25, 2024 2:57 pm | Comments (12)
The same hackers who stole $6 million from the city last year also obtained access to birth dates, Social Security numbers, financial account numbers, and other “personal information” of hundreds of city employees, retirees, and contractors.
Continue reading ‘Cyberattack Exposed "Personal Info" For 400+’
by | Jun 25, 2024 2:39 pm | Comments (34)
Thomas Breen photo
"IZ" affordable apartments approved, but not built, at 50 Fitch.
Two and a half years after the city adopted a law designed to require affordable housing to be built as part of New Haven’s market-rate construction boom, the city’s “Inclusionary Zoning” law hasn’t yet created a single new reduced-rent place to live.
Most of the 50 “IZ” affordable apartments approved so far appear to be indefinitely held up by the high cost of borrowing money — even as other, non-“IZ” affordable developments move ahead.
Continue reading ‘No "Inclusionary" Apartments Built So Far’
by | Jun 17, 2024 10:56 am | Comments (5)
Laura Glesby Photo
DESK director Werlin (center): Guided by "accessibility."
In order to operate a soon-to-be-renovated four-story hub of meals, healthcare, and gathering for unhoused clients, Downtown Evening Soup Kitchen (DESK) is going to need an elevator.
And in order to dig an elevator shaft, the organization first needs to shore up the foundation of the parking garage next door.
by | Jun 7, 2024 9:01 am | Comments (9)
Thomas Breen File Photo
794 Dixwell Ave.
The leaky roof of 794 Dixwell Ave. will soon get fixed, with the help of $300,000 from the city, in time for a new all-boys charter school to open there in the fall.
Continue reading ‘Alders Fund Clifford Beers, Charter School Roof Repairs’
by | Jun 4, 2024 3:09 pm | Comments (36)
Laura Glesby and Thomas Breen Photos
10 Liberty (top) and 48 Grant, soon to become housing?
Two abandoned factory buildings in the Hill are each a step closer to revival as housing, after alders approved a tax break and a zoning change on Monday night.
Continue reading ‘Factories-To-Housing Tax Break, Rezoning OK'd’
by | Jun 4, 2024 2:16 pm | Comments (22)
Laura Glesby File Photo
CAO Rush-Kittle: "Work ethic will be the same.”
The city’s chief administrative officer can now live with her family in a Hartford suburb while continuing to oversee New Haven’s police and fire departments — thanks to a residency-requirement exemption granted by the Board of Alders.
Continue reading ‘Alders Let Rush-Kittle Live In Rocky Hill’
by | May 29, 2024 5:49 pm | Comments (6)
Laura Glesby photo
Morris Cove Alder Sal DeCola introduces the ammo-storage amendment.
In a last-minute federal funding reallocation on Tuesday evening, alders unanimously voted to spend $250,000 in Covid-recovery aid on a new police ammunition storage unit.
by | May 28, 2024 9:47 pm | Comments (26)
Laura Glesby photo
Finance Chair Marchand: Budget balances optimism, restraint.
A housing agency focused on inspections, a separate parks department, a designated affordable housing development officer, and a 38.5 mill rate.
Those changes and others are coming to New Haven in the 2024 – 25 fiscal year, by way of a new budget passed by alders on Tuesday night.
Continue reading ‘It's Official: $679M Budget OK'd; LCI To Split’
by | May 28, 2024 8:41 am | Comments (9)
Thomas Breen photo
15 Colby Ct., to be replaced by 4 new townhouse rentals.
A pair of plans to build four needed houses apiece moved ahead for underused plots of Upper Westville and Newhallville.
by | May 24, 2024 10:52 am | Comments (10)
Paul Bass File Photo
Steve Winter: "Neighborhood-scale platform for decarbonization."
The city hopes to draw clean energy directly from the earth to heat and cool a train station, a thousand or so apartments, and maybe one day an entire neighborhood.
Continue reading ‘Geothermal Energy Sought For "Union Square"’
by | May 22, 2024 8:07 am | Comments (6)
Thomas Breen file photo
This work just got a whole lot more expensive for NHPS.
The cost of clearing the first inch of snow from New Haven’s public school properties during winter storms jumped from around $19,000 to more than $49,000 this year — thanks to what one Board of Education-hired contractor described as spikes in the costs of fuel, insurance, and maintaining worn-down snow removal equipment.
Continue reading ‘Snow Removal Costs Climb After Change Orders, Re-Bid Contracts’
by | May 21, 2024 9:23 am | Comments (32)
19 locations for red light and speed cameras.
Alders paved a road for the city to fine speeding drivers and red light runners with the help of traffic cameras — though they are poised to fund only half of the city positions the Elicker administration has requested for the rollout of those cameras in the upcoming city budget.
by | May 21, 2024 9:19 am | Comments (3)
Abiba Biao Photos
Fred Harris, with the mayor: "The fight is not over."
Six decades after leading a grassroots movement for racial, educational, and housing justice in the Hill while battling New Haven’s political leaders, Fred Harris returned to City Hall — to be recognized as a hometown hero.
by | May 20, 2024 9:07 am | Comments (15)
Thomas Breen photo
30 Lenox St.
A former Fair Haven Heights fabric-coating chemical factory could become a mix of private studios occupied by artists, small business owners, and small-scale manufacturers — as well as a site for self-storage.
by | May 17, 2024 1:44 pm | Comments (34)
Laura Glesby Photo
Finance Chair Marchand, second from right, led committee in approving some — but not all — new city positions.
A key committee of alders endorsed a city budget with standalone housing code enforcement and parks departments, though with fewer positions than the mayor had wanted.
They also advanced a 3.49 percent rise in the mill rate, rather than the 3.98 percent increase the mayor had proposed.
Continue reading ‘Alders Trim, Advance Mayor’s Bigger Budget’
by | May 16, 2024 12:15 pm | Comments (12)
Thomas Breen photos
Smoke rings floating this way?
Neighbors tired of smoke shops pushed back on a Hill native’s plan to turn a vacant Washington Avenue storefront from a place for cutting hair to a venue for cutting deals on sweatsuits and smoking paraphernalia.
by | May 15, 2024 1:02 pm | Comments (8)
Paul Bass Photo
Steve Fontana in his last week as a New Haven development official, recording a press conference outside College Street Music Hall Wednesday.
A third New Haven city government official is heading west to help a new mayor build up her city.
Continue reading ‘West Haven Mayor Steals 2nd New Haven Fontana’
by | May 9, 2024 2:00 pm | Comments (18)
Fair Rent's Wildaliz Bermúdez with new tenants union rep Zach Postle.
A cracked window at 1455 State.
Zach Postle and his neighbors got tired of waiting days and weeks and months for their landlord to respond to maintenance concerns like broken windows and busted heating, so they formed a tenants union — the sixth to officially file with City Hall, and the fifth created at an Ocean Management rental property.
by | May 9, 2024 9:20 am | Comments (47)
Patriquin Architects
A proposed rendering by Patriquin Architects of what a Union Station-adjacent development could look like.
It’s official: Union Station and its adjacent lots are now a “Transit Oriented Community,” where taller, denser developments supporting car-free living may soon take shape — so long as new housing builders can navigate an extra bureaucratic step.
by | May 7, 2024 12:04 pm | Comments (9)
Laura Glesby file photo
Westville Alder Adam Marchand.
The following “Legislative Update” email was sent by Westville Alder Adam Marchand to constituents Tuesday morning, explaining why he voted with a majority of his Board of Alders colleagues to not adopt a proposed resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.
Continue reading ‘Marchand: Ceasefire Resolution Was "Flawed Beyond Repair"’
by | May 6, 2024 8:04 pm | Comments (43)
Laura Glesby Photo
Protesters rally outside City Hall ...
... before filling the Aldermanic Chamber for Monday's vote.
The Board of Alders voted not to adopt a proposed resolution supporting a ceasefire in Gaza on Monday evening, prompting backlash from over a hundred protesters.
by | May 1, 2024 10:02 pm | Comments (46)
Nora Grace-Flood Photo
Advocates for the resolution protest at the Board of Alders in February.
Hundreds of people turned out to offer polarized and passionate testimony before the Board of Alders during an online hearing about a resolution for a ceasefire in Gaza — a proposal that local legislators plan to take up for deliberations next week.
Continue reading ‘Ceasefire Hearing Draws Anguished Testimony’
by | Apr 24, 2024 10:31 am | Comments (16)
Maya McFadden Photo
New Haven Counts ED Ronald Coleman (center) and New Haven Reads ED Kirsten Levinsohn on Tuesday.
A citywide math and literacy tutoring effort has reached 1,700 New Haven elementary school students since launching nearly a year ago — and is now on the lookout for 100 more volunteer tutors this summer, on top of the 240 who are currently signed up, to keep the program growing.