Allan Appel Photo
Grand looking west at Jefferson, at the City Seed building, site of the much missed Frank’s hardware store.
A grocery, a deli, florist, a coffee shop, or an all-purpose hardware store so you wouldn’t have to drive five miles to pick up a nut, bolt, or screw.
An ethnic restaurant with tables on the sidewalk, to be welcoming. Something that says “neighborhood.”
And how about lowering traffic speeds, less loitering, and attracting foot traffic beyond clients of social service agencies?
Neighbors Leon Plantinga, Ellen Ryerson, and Julia Knight.
Those suggestions came up at a brainstorming session Tuesday night about the future of Grand Avenue.
The suggestions led to a question: Can rezoning make some — or any — of this happen?
Wooster Square Alder Aaron Greenberg and City Assistant Director for Comprehensive Planning Aicha Woods convened about 40 people at the Conte/West Hills School library for the session to “re-vision” the stretch of the Grand Avenue corridor roughly from Hamilton Street and the new Mill River Crossing development to Olive Street.
The City Plan Department has put this corridor and two others — lower Dixwell Avenue and lower Whalley Avenue near downtown — on a fast track for rezoning.
The idea for Tuesday’s “listening session” was to solicit ideas for what new uses locals want in the neighborhood; to focus on challenges to overcome in street-scape improvements; and then to see how rezoning from the corridor’s current general business (BA) designation to other current classifications or potentially a new “transitional commercial zone” might help to achieve agreed-upon goals.
The aim is to get more commercial and street level activity to “restitch” the area to downtown.
Woods said City Plan staffers are doing the project in-house. After one more public meeting in December, they hope to take the package of rezoning proposals for the three transitional corridors to City Plan commissioners, who would hold another public hearing; and then to the Board of Alders for final debate and approval. All zoning changes must be aldermanically approved.
Woods said she hopes the changes are formally approved and implemented by early 2019.
Longtime Lyon Street resident Pat McCardle was in one of the four groups into which participants were divided Tuesday evening to ponder the questions and then to report.
“I love my house, my neighborhood, New Haven,” she said. Yet she and others in her group questioned whether zoning changes alone can address loitering and safety challenges that recently have resulted in the closing of the only grocery in the area, the convenience store at Olive and Grand.
“They’d been robbed so many times, they had to put on a heavy door” , another member of her group said.
Wooster Square activist Bonnie Rosenberg bemoaned the loss of Frank’s Hardware, which used to be at Jefferson Street. She said she yearns for a place where she could go, walking out of her Wooster Square door, to pick up just the right screws and nuts she needs for a domestic repair job without having to drive to a big box establishment.
Such big box or flagship enterprises are not part of the aim, Woods emphasized, but rather using the zoning code for“infill” of the blank or gapped spaces along the avenue with smaller, local mixed-use activity.
“There’s a tremendous range of uses here already. Will zoning help?” asked Charlie Murphy.
“The BA zone in terms of uses is very liberal,” Woods said.
She mentioned many quality of life issues imperiling the vitality of the corridor. “Property and business owners are frustrated by the loitering, and I don’t know how that’s addressed by zoning,” she said.
“Our goal is not to restrict but foster opportunities.”
Shuttered grocery and problematical intersection looking west at Olive and Grand.
Then the participants were off and running with suggestions.
Apart from a revival of a beloved local hardware store, other participants spoke of wanting a fitness establishment, a market with front or street-facing seating, coffee shops, and restaurants.
“I don’t want another restaurant and bar district,” said Doug Royalty, a neighbor who sits on the Historic District Commission. “How about a vintage clothing store, or an old books store?”
At another table, Wooster Square advocate Murphy, Chatham Square’s Lee Cruz, and others discussed the Olive and Grand intersection, and particularly the curved turning lane in front of the firehouse might be improved both for safety and good looks.
Woods and Greenberg present.
Marge Pikaart, who volunteers with homeless projects in the area, bemoaned the condition of the State Street Shoreline East train station. Admittedly that location was out of the purview of Woods’ area, but Pikaart reported that some of the homeless men had asked to be allowed to help improve the neighborhood with projects like repainting fire hydrants.
“Why couldn’t we have a kind of work exchange?” she suggested. She spoke of a project that might ameliorate the problems with the peripatetic homeless population, and in so doing make the area more attractive to some of the new businesses people want.
Other ideas put forward included: extending the downtown “ambassadors: program to Grand; better lighting and maybe mural-ing of the dismal highway overpass at Franklin Street; mixed use development that included work-live spaces that will increase foot traffic after dark; and hiding Dumpsters from sight.
Under-utilized asset Lenzi Park.
Other groups were tasked with enumerating what they love about the area and what chief obstacles loom.
Several people cited with affection Lenzi Park on Jefferson Street. One participant suggested that if a shop or market or business faced the park, that could activate that area and it could become a mini-focus of positive activity.
Chief among the challenges were the perceived lack of public safety of the area. That perception isheld primarily by outsiders, not by those who live in the neighborhood.
Another perception to be overcome is that the corridor is completely a pass-through and that the foot traffic is mainly social service clients. Maybe that could be remedied, one participant said, by putting in a “parklet,” by having a bike share station on the avenue, and having first-floor residences.
Longtime Lyon Street resident Mona Berman talked about air and noise pollution along her block drifting over from the avenue.
Nate Collins, standing, and his wife Jess, relatively new to Chestnut Street, very positive that the changes can be made.
New Haven Urban Design League President Anstress Farwell said officials should ensure that all commercial development and zoning changes take into consideration the proximity of neighboring residents.
Farwell ended up quite optimistic, at least in this instance, about the power of smart zoning to cure problems that un-thoughtful zoning has created.
A lot of our problems come out of big box” development. she said as the meeting concluded. “Very good infill will create real economic benefit, and this is a very important thing to do. It adds value and decreases costs, like policing. That’s a more profound kind of development and benefit.”
The I-91 underpass, an obstacle to be dealt with.
Wood said she’ll make an effort to have a sampling or summary of the evening’s comments available on the City Plan website before the next public meeting. That will be in December, date to be determined.