Opinion: Coliseum Site Needs A Neighborhood Builder

(Opinion) When I first came back to New Haven in 1971 I was told by everyone to focus on the problems of the poor and the disadvantaged. Forty years later I see the mood of the City seems not to have changed. Affordable housing is critically important but there are several much larger issues which need to be the focus of our discussions, all of which conclude making the project financially successful for all income classes.

The current controversy over the Coliseum site is focused strictly on affordable housing, a subject which, by itself, is a nonstarter. 

Requiring developers to offer affordable housing has been a tenet of city development requirements for years and has never really worked. It basically requires developers to build units in conjunction with existing zoning, existing union dominated construction costs, and then paying for the difference themselves between their costs and the resulting rental levels.

In the past the City has attempted to bridge this gap with local, state and federal subsidies but it should be clear to everyone that this era of supporting developers with our tax dollars is over. Rather than miring ourselves in a debate about affordable housing and who is to pay the subsidies, may I suggest that we take a look at the future of New Haven, where we might be going, and what policies might accomplish the latter. 

The history of development in New Haven is littered with the bodies of every failed government program in the U.S. All well meaning, but all failed, suggesting that we can learn from all these projects. For example — I warn you, a very discouraging list — the Chapel Square Mall, Ninth Square, Legion Avenue/Rte. 34, the Coliseum, Gateway Community College, the Long Wharf Maritime Center, Harbor Landing, Granite Square — we have been very innovative in our approaches but because they were the fad of the moment they’ve all failed to withstand the test of time. Affordable housing policy is only one of the problems.

With the Coliseum site, however, we now have a chance to do something better. First, take our future back from the developers and put it in the hands of our citizens. Second, wean ourselves away from total dependence on Yale.

Fortunately, their presence has established New Haven as a center of ​“eds and meds,” which has produced a successful development motivator throughout the United States.

Unfortunately their dominance of downtown New Haven and their Shops at Yale mall is a disaster. My opinion is the only answer is neighborhood development. 

In order to move forward toward the future, we need to embrace neighborhoods. In cities all over the world the only successful survivors are neighborhoods. Most of them were created on planning practices of the 1700s or 1800s. Very few of them have been constructed recently. They’re too complicated, too many moving parts, no easy money for a developer, meaning you are only rewarded with long term success. 

But, after our 50-year string of failures, it’s the only alternative. Their precepts such as low rise, high density projects have made them flourish over time. We need a discussion about the future of New Haven, precisely to determine if this neighborhood philosophy should be our credo. If it is, we are going to need significant changes to our zoning and our negotiations with developers. 

Once this philosophy is in place, and this may take one to two years, we can then properly address the status of the Coliseum site. 

Yes, I know, a long-term plan, but let’s examine the short-term proposal.

We rush to give the site to Spinnaker. They promise to build the most lucrative part of the development — namely a subsidized high rise apartment — and submit no plans or pro formas or projections about the balance of the project. Somehow they assume that once they have their shovel in the ground they’ll be able to manipulate the City into almost anything. This is not an unusual negotiation and has happened frequently with developers of all sorts promising all kinds of things as the project matures but which are never delivered. 

The pandemic along with the destruction of all of our government finances — local, state and federal — gives us an opportunity to hold back now and look to the future. I hope we can take advantage of it. 

Joel Schiavone (pictured) became known as Mr. Downtown for reviving New Haven’s downtown in the 1980s as a banjo-playing developer. Read past articles about the Coliseum proposal here, here, here and here.