Spinnaker
Envisioned Coliseum site project.
Frank Caico and his Spinnaker Real Estate Partners sounded as if they were about to take a victory lap.
After a year of design and modifications, their site plan for the first building in a multi-year project to redeem the former New Haven Coliseum site with a mixed-use “mini-city” came before City Plan Wednesday evening commissioners for a site plan review and approval.
He left without that approval.
At the end of a long presentation by the developers, two grueling hours of testimony, and an 11th-hour written plea from the Downtown/Wooster Square and Hill South management teams, commissioners put a hold on voting on site plan approval … for two weeks.
The scene was Wednesday night’s regular Zoom meeting of the City Plan Commission.
The Norwalk-based developer, already with deep investments in New Haven, agreed to try to rescue the Coliseum site project after a previous plan fell apart to built on the George-State-MLK-Orange lot in the Ninth Square where the former concrete arena was demolished in 2009.
Spinnaker put in a year of work and cooperation with the city to ensure the site plan would comply with the DLDA (development and land disposition agreement) signed by the previous developer. It met with neighborhood groups.
On Wednesday night those groups argued for a delay in voting on the plan to incorporate more input into the features of what will become an array of gateway buildings for New Haven for decades to come.
By law Wednesday night’s public hearing on the site plan review was to have been not on the design of the building’s design, its affordable housing component, participation by minority workers and contractors, or materials used.
Rather, as the developer’s attorney Carolyn Kone underscored, discussion had to be rather narrowly focused on issues such as storm water drainage, traffic impacts, maybe landscaping and lighting design. In effect, largely on zoning compliance and compliance with the DLDA, which the city had already approved.
However, with thoughtful and concerned speakers on both sides — approximately 15 of them, by this reporter’s count — those issues remained in play.
Click here for the developer’s 32-page presentation, which skeptics of the plan, such as New Haven Urban League President Anstress Farwell, said contained new material not previously shared with the management teams.
That was at least one compelling reason, she asserted, to delay a vote.
The meeting’s hosts, Deputy Director for Zoning Jenna Montesano — who at the end of the month will be leaving her post for the private sector — and City Plan staffer Stacey Davis, also screen-shared for the commissioners a letter sent to them by Sarah McIver and Caroline Smith, chairs of the Hill South and Downtown/Wooster Square Management teams.
That letter was received just hours before the meeting commenced.
That letter, in turn, was a response to a city letter sent to the CMTs that sought to respond, on behalf of the developer, to issues raised by neighbors back on Sept. 11 at a Zoom workshop convened by the city and Spinnaker. That gathering prompted debate into the developer’s affordable housing component of the plan.
Commission Chair Ed Mattison concluded that more time was needed for a thoughtful response to the city’s and developer’s responses to residents.
The first three members of the public to give testimony were Melissa Mason, Wynn Davis, and Garrett Sheehan respectively the heads of New Haven Works, Town Green Special Services District, and the Greater New Haven Chamber of Commerce. All offered enthusiastic support.
So did Tony Bialecki, a former city economic development officer. He praised the “connectivity” of the plan, the breaking up of a massive space, with its “laneway” of commercial spaces and pubic amenities, and especially its plaza. Other plazas, such as Temple Square and Pitkin, “have proven helpful to the city,” he said.
As the city staffer who supervised the demolition of the Coliseum, Bialecki said, he was happy to see this day.
Other speakers such as Farwell questioned how much public space, required by the DLDA, there truly is in the project. Hard to know, she said, especially as materials on that matter requested from the developer have not yet been provided. Does a parking areas count in the tally of “open spaces?” she asked rhetorically.
There were also safety questions about the “laneway,” the proposed private street that, running parallel to George, bisects the site and ends up in the plaza at the corner of State Street.
“Since January 2019, 20 people [pedestrians and bicyclists] have been killed in New Haven. What is the lighting on the shared street? How many speed bumps? It must be safe,” testified Downtown/Wooster Square Alder Abby Roth.
And on this “private” street, if someone were killed there, would the city be liable? she asked.
The developers’ traffic engineer, Fuss & O’Neil’s Ted DeSantos, offered the reassurance that in the hundred or similar shared private streets that he and his firm have been associated with, no such serious incidents have occurred.
The retail, the variegated textures of the roadway, the trees, and the bumps and other traffic-calming infrastructure all contribute to an atmosphere where drivers tend to make eye contact with pedestrians, he said.
You can walk this road holding your child’s hand and not worry that a car is going to slam into you, he asserted.
City Plan Vice Chair Leslie Radcliffe needed more convincing. She questioned why cars would be even permitted in the space. DeSantos’ answer: You needed what he called the “vehicular penetration” to service the businesses, to help people moving in and out, and for deliveries.
Downtown/Wooster Square Chair Caroline Smith echoed Roth’s safety concerns and called for more due diligence on such an important project.
She also seconded concerns raised by architectural historian and Yale School of Architecture Prof Elihu Rubin, who has participated in meetings with the developer. He questioned the massing on George Street and a public plaza (at George and State streets) already undermined, in his view, by having “one built edge and the other is a parking area.”
The plan, he said, doesn’t give confidence that developers are looking down the road and are seeing the big picture.
“This is public land. Outside the narrow discussion on zoning we should be talking about what the city should look like. It seems that this is what the city wants to go forward … and I guess if the public’s unhappy, we have elections to express our discontent,” he said.
“I’m not saying go or not go. We should be transparent. I would love for the developers and planners to say we expect this to be part of our city for ten or 50 years.”
On the give-it-the-green-light side, city economic development officer Kathleen Krolak read a letter from a beleagured Ninth Square business person who praised the boost a 200-unit apartment building will provide.
Then Hill Alder Carmen Rodriguez raised the issue of affordable housing, “although I know it’s not supposed to be discussed tonight. The DLDA exists because this is public, and at this time it does not seem we are getting the public benefit. The public input has pushed the developer to do better, but it could be better. Residents of Downtown and the Hill want to see us all connected. The question is: Where is the Hill connected in this project?”
As 10 p.m. neared, Farwell reminded the commissioners that the developers had not submitted a travel demand management plan.
That study documents steps to be taken to link to existing public transportation, van services, opportunities to be offered for carpooling and other means to reduce vehicular use in the area.
“Your approval would trigger transfer of this land for Phase One, and some of that land doesn’t have a plan yet. It’s still a parking lot. And you’re approving a traffic study to apply to every other phase of the development?” Farwell stated.
These are serious procedural questions, she concluded. “They merit being continued and having full answers.”
The commissioners agreed, but the offer for a delay was for only two weeks. By a unanimous vote the public hearing was tabled, to be continued at a special meeting on Nov 4.