Homeownership Proposed For Triangle

What if the city subdivided a vacant six-acre stretch at the intersection of Orchard Street and Martin Luther King Boulevard and let neighbors purchase lots to build their own townhomes there?

Neighbor and urban planner Jonathan Hopkins floated the idea at the monthly Dwight Central Management Team (CMT) meeting to see if neighbors would back rezoning the lot, the first step required to bring this vision to fruition.

“This is kind of a years-long process of negotiating and drafting zoning and getting the legal agreements,” Hopkins explained. ​“For me, I don’t want to undertake that if there’s going to be a lot of opposition.”

One lot is currently a grassy triangle bordered by houses on Auburn Street and small apartment buildings on Scranton Street. The old Jessie L. Scranton School building and accompanying garage anchor the Orchard Street corner of the triangle. There are three other similar parcels along the stretch that add up to six acres altogether, Hopkins said.

New Haven has gradually been promoting new development along blocks of the median strip across the street, negotiating with big developers. Hopkins, a critic of 1950s-1960s urban renewal that destroyed a neighborhood there, has for years pushed for small-scale local homeownership like the plan he raised last week at the CMT meeting.

On Friday afternoon, school kids used a dirt path (pictured above) and half-sidewalk to cut across the lot from Martin Luther King Boulevard to Scranton. A small dog named Minnie squatted in the grass and then scampered back into the apartment building across the street.

“She’s the only one that be in there,” reported neighbor Rachel Archer.

Another neighbor, Oscar Li, flipped a soccer ball between his feet. He said that he would be open to someone building more houses across the street from him.

“Why wouldn’t you?” Li asked. ​“It’s so uneven. You can’t do anything over there. You’ll lose your whole kneecap, and I don’t have health insurance.”

Mixed Reactions

Hopkins explained his vision to the Dwight management team: up to 100 homes, nested in one- to two-family houses on small lots. The homes themselves could be townhouse-style and face Scranton Street, with fencing along Martin Luther King Boulevard.

Some neighbors thought the plan was exactly right for that property. Others had questions about who Hopkins was and what he would get out of the idea.

“It’s a perfect spot. I grew up in this neighborhood and that site has been clear as long as I’ve been alive,” said Phillip Bruton, a neighbor broadcasting from Kensington Park during the meeting.

He is part of an active group of neighbors opposed to transferring Kensington Park to The Community Builders (TCB) to construct 15 new affordable apartments.

“Instead of tearing down part of a neighborhood that already exists, that’s a great spot. If I wanted to buy a house, I would love to put it right there,” he said.

Neighbor Patricia Wallace spoke highly of the plan, again in contrast to the Kensington Park plans. She also approved of building one- to three-family houses with a mixture of homeowners and renters.

“This works in Dwight. It is what has always worked. Dwight’s a working-class neighborhood. People in the city deserve and need that kind of housing,” Wallace said.

She said that the gas pipeline would need to be thoroughly explored and explained, since the idea conjures up stories of unexpected gas explosions elsewhere.

“I’m 64. When I was 8 years old, that whole area was filled with housing and businesses at that time,” said Verna Norman.

Hopkins responded with one of the favorite arguments of new urbanism: that neighborhood could not be rebuilt with the zoning of today.

Two other neighbors listening in on the call asked how the project would work financially.

“Who do you plan to work with in terms of financing?” asked Dorthula Green.

Hopkins explained that he’s mostly interested in pushing through the zoning change.

“Then there would be 100 different properties that 100 different people could develop at that point,” he said.

This could happen by allowing New Haven residents to purchase the plots of land at affordable prices and then supporting them with downpayment assistance or construction training programs that already exist.

Nia Campinha-Bacote answered Hopkins’ initial question about whether neighbors would be opposed to the rezoning most directly.

“We don’t feel comfortable with the project as it stands now. I think there are a lot of questions,” she said.

Management team president Florita Gillespie said that Hopkins could come back at the next meeting, the day after Election Day, to answer further questions.

Just Your Neighborhood City Planner

A high-powered gas line runs underneath the triangle, which shows up as state-owned in city databases. It has made West River neighbors’ suggestions to build housing on that strip seem impossible, Board of Alders President Tyisha Walker-Myers reported when Hopkins brought the idea up at a Dwight meeting in June.

Then Hopkins did some more research. He concluded the gas line doesn’t need to spell the end of the idea. He said there are plenty of options like prefabricated houses or constructing houses on top of a slab of concrete (i.e. no basement).

Hopkins (pictured) is something of an expert on local architectural history. A New Haven native, Hopkins lives in the Edgewood neighborhood and works as a city planner for Fairfield County. He has researched and written extensively on housing history for the Independent; Yale School of Art housed an exhibit of his work on Church Street South.

The Orchard Street triangle, in particular, started to intrigue Hopkins in 2008. It’s part of the Oak Street neighborhood demolished during urban renewal for the Oak Street Connector that never fully materialized. (Read Hopkins’ illustrated history of that story and recent events here.)

The city is working on stitching the Downtown and Hill neighborhoods back together on the eastern side of Route 34 with new developments and its Downtown Crossing infrastructure project. Similar plans for the western side died out after neighborhood opposition in 2008 and 2009, as Hopkins remembers it.

Hopkins kept thinking about the property. He’s at the very beginning stages of acting on his thoughts.

While the triangle is still listed in the New Haven assessor’s database as belonging to the state, Hopkins spotted it on a list of properties the state approved to transfer to New Haven.

“It’s really just a question to residents to see if it’s worth asking other stakeholders about that possibility,” he said.

His process is backwards from the process for most developments. He hasn’t talked to the gas company about whether it would be willing to let someone build over the pipeline. He hasn’t yet visited the West River Neighborhood Services Corporation. He’s squeezing out time around his job and isn’t sure precisely when he will be ready for these steps.

“I’m not a big-time developer that could build hundreds of units. I’m potentially someone who is interested in building a house or two on the land if that’s possible,” he said.

There aren’t any other immediate plans for the property, at least as far as tLivable City Initiative Deputy Director of Neighborhood and Property Services Frank D’Amore has heard.