Zoners Douse Edwards Firehouse-Apartment Plan

The city’s zoning board unanimously rejected a local landlord’s plan to build 23 apartments atop a vacant former Edwards Street firehouse after a marathon hearing saw skeptical neighbors and pro-housing advocates debate over how much density should be allowed in this stretch of East Rock, and across the city at large.

The Board of Zoning Appeals (BZA) took that vote Tuesday night during its latest monthly meeting on the second floor of City Hall.

The commissioners quashed developer Albert Annunziata’s request for two variances from the zoning rules at a historic East Rock firehouse his company had purchased for $1,395,000 last September, which he had hoped to convert into a 60-foot-tall rectangular apartment building that would yield 23 apartments.

Over the last month, the proposal by Annunziata had galvanized a group of East Rock residents who live or own property near the 15 Edwards St. firehouse in opposition. They made their case in letters to the BZA, petitions circulated around East Rock, at a community meeting with the neighborhood’s Alder Caroline Smith, and at an informational session with the landlord plus his attorney Ben Trachten and architect Sam Gardner earlier this month that descended into a finger-pointing, eyebrow-raising word melee after not even two minutes of politesse.

When the night of the hearing rolled around Tuesday, the clash had morphed from a dispute over a parcel in the Upper State Street section into a referendum on the destiny of the neighborhood, and even the city. The meeting room was packed to standing room only. Dozens of community members testified.

The proposal, community members have argued, led by immediate firehouse neighbors Tory Sansing and Augustine Filomena, would be out of scale with the surroundings; cast shadows over the block and dim the area, obscuring Filomena’s solar panels and apiary; encroach too close to the property line (3.5 feet, where the current firehouse, built before the city’s zoning rules mandated 15 feet or more, sits); pose a fire risk; eliminate parking; and do little to improve affordability. 

The proposal would have benefited from the city’s Inclusionary Zoning (IZ) ordinance, which allows for denser residential development so long as a builder sets aside a number of units at below-market rents. Twenty two of these apartments would have been market rate, and one below-market rate.

Annunziata, Trachten, and Gardner countered that the plan would have added density to a neighborhood lacking it, and would have been better suited for historic preservation and overall appearance than the options they would be deciding between to build as-of-right. Those options include a ​“wedding cake”-style structure that terraces and narrows as it goes higher and a low-rise extension that would subsume the entire backyard and parking lot.

Robert Narracci, an East Rock resident and architect who attended the meeting between community members and the developer on Jan. 6 and remained mostly silent then aside from a few questions, kicked off testimony.

“I don’t believe this appeal would be in harmony with the general purpose and intent of our zoning ordinance,” he told the Board. ​“Some critics of the status quo have haughtily referred to this as NIMBYism, meaning ​‘not in my backyard,’ and kind of considered that to be exclusionary, but to respond to this, it’s very irrational for a city to employ mechanisms for inclusivity that destroy aspects of neighborhoods, which make people want to be included in the first place.”

Marjorie Shansky, a zoning and land use attorney based on Grand Avenue, agreed.

“There are ways to appropriately and harmoniously increase the density in all neighborhoods in the city of New Haven,” she said. ​“We haven’t regulated those yet, we haven’t found those yet, we haven’t conducted the public hearings on those yet, but they are available to us so that not every application that offers something is a good idea. And in fact, this application is no idea at all.”

Chris Mordecai, an East Rock resident and realtor with the Farnam Group, encouraged the board to take into account the ​“semi-crisis” of affordability in the city and approve the request. ​“We all are aware of supply and demand,” he said. ​“The more the supply, the demand is still there but the cost will come down for all of the people that want to live in New Haven.”

The plan proposed adding 22 new market-rate studio, one‑, and two-bed apartments and one affordable unit — none above 700 square feet. The developer positioned that plan in the thick of a larger local and national debate about affordability, which his attorney, Trachten, reiterated for the BZA Tuesday night.

“We need more housing options,” Trachten said. ​“It drives down the price, whether we’re doing it 23 units at a time or one unit at a time, every single unit makes a difference.” 

Anika Singh Lemar, a clinical professor at Yale Law School, backed up Mordecai’s sentiment. ​“Market-rate housing, partly because you can build a lot more of it — you’re not relying on public fisc — arguably does more to address the housing affordability crisis we’re in today than solely income-restricted affordable housing does,” she said.

Then the meeting zoomed in from the macroeconomic picture back to 15 Edwards St. Alder Smith brought all the sides back to the table again in her testimony.

“I have deep appreciation for each of these views,” she said. ​“I understand the tension some business owners have articulated about an interest in increased foot traffic from new housing, but concerns if their customers and employees will have a place to park. I have been in the backyard of Mr. Filomena, who has invested in his garden and solar panels on the roofs with such care and such true authentic love. And I’ve had the emotional conversations with neighbors who have felt the serious pain of the housing shortage.”

Smith then outlined a compromise: limit the development to one additional story to minimize the shade, maintain some level of parking behind the building, and build the new structure with ​“reasonable aesthetic consistency” with the existing facade.

After listening to two and a half hours of impassioned testimony from community members, some for but nearly all against the proposal, the commissioners voted unanimously to deny on the basis that the developer had failed to demonstrate a hardship necessitating relief by the BZA. 

“I feel that there are other ways to go about this,” said Chair Mildred Melendez, after testimony and rebuttals had concluded. ​“The hardship, I just don’t see it.”

Now it’s up for Annunziata, who did not attend the meeting in person and could not immediately be reached by phone, to make a decision among the as-of ‑right choices he has at his disposal.