This machine chaired a meeting at City Hall Tuesday morning. It rescued a $60- $90 million development project in Westville. The machine’s formal name is “Nortel.” Humans gathered around it addressed it as “Pat.”
The meeting was an emergency gathering of the City Plan Commission scheduled for 8:30 a.m. The commission called the meeting to vote on a soil erosion and sediment control permit for Virginia-based Metropolitan Development to proceed with plans to build 293 apartments on the site of an old factory on Blake Street. The developer needed the approval to meet a Dec. 31 deadline to preserve its financing. Wary neighbors showed up to make sure the developer and the commission wouldn’t sneak any changes into the project’s architectural plans.
By 8:45 a.m., the commission lacked a quorum. Member Joe Jolly was expected, but unreachable at all three of his numbers.
So a call went to Hartford where local attorney Pat King works. King chairs City Plan but couldn’t attend this meeting. Under commission rules a member may “attend” by speaker phone. Fortunately, King had already read the paperwork associated with the permit request.
A Nortel Networks phone was wheeled to the head of the table atop a three-step stool. City Plan Director Karyn Gilvarg lifted the handset and turned on the speaker phone.
“This is Pat King, chairman of the commission,” announced a disembodied voice. “I’m going to call the meeting to order.”
Gilvarg “introduced” the speaker phone to the five commission members and city staffers seated around the conference table.
King made clear that the approval of this permit doesn’t give the developer the right to make changes to the architectural plans for the project. Neighbors worry that the developer will use cheaper materials and scrimp on the quality of the design; doing that would require changing a carefully prepared compromise struck with the property’s previous owner. The developer did request the changes but has since withdrawn them.
The phone sat silent as commission members discussed the permit and chatted with the local attorney representing Metropolitan Development [in photo], who sat by windows overlooking the Green to the right of the table in the fifth-floor conference room.
“Can you hear that Pat?” Gilvarg asked the phone. “That’s attorney [Michael] Milazzo for the developer.”
After a while, the phone interjected itself again. “Are there any other questions?” it asked “It’s kind of hard to hear.”
The voice called the question.
“All in favor?”
“Aye” came voices around the table.
“Any opposed?”
Silence.
“Was there anyone opposed?”
No, there wasn’t.
Unsettled Questions
With a click, the chair signed off, and the meeting officially ended.
What the chair didn’t see: The five neighbors sitting in the back of the room. One of them, former Alderwoman Nancy Ahern, knitting booties for the public library’s Mardi Gras auction.
What the chair didn’t hear: An informal discussion that ensued as soon as the meeting formally adjourned. Westville activist Thea Buxbaum asked Gilvarg whether approving this preliminary permit will set in motion a “domino effect” that will enable the developer more easily to get approval for design changes for a project already underway.
No, Gilvarg assured her. “We do this all the time. And you as a developer should know this.”
Gilvarg said City Plan has made clear to the developer that the commission won’t amend the plan. Milazzo said the developer has withdrawn requests to use vinyl clapboard instead of brick, for instance, and to cut back on architectural details like the decorative balconies.
However, Milazzo said the developer will return after the new year to discuss requested changes with City Plan.
The neighbors present Tuesday vowed to stay involved at every step.
We want this in the bright light of day,” said Kate Bradley (in photo with Gabriel da Silva). “We’re not against this development. We’re not trying to kill anything.”
The neighbors’ fear is that rather than following through with a high-quality development aimed at empty nesters and young commuters, Metropolitan will build a trashy complex that will function as a dorm for nearby college students.
“Blake Street should not be the dumping ground for all that’s mediocre,” Thea Buxbaum said.
Neighbors are also concerned about flood control. The property, a block from the center of Westville Village, turned into one big river along with the rest of the area during the 1982 flood, when the neighborhood was declared a federal disaster area. Since then the federal government built a retaining wall. Also, the previous owner of the property put in a set of pumps.
“In the post-Katrina world,” read a petition neighbors presented to City Plan, “we all understand the consequences of deferred maintenance of the flood wall… Without the ongoing routine maintenance, the flood prevention measures which built a flood wall, and channelized and widened the river have reverted. The West River channel has become silt-filled and choked with overgrown weeds.”
City Engineer Dick Miller said the property’s new owners have responsibility for maintaining the pumps. The city maintains the channel.
Who has responsibility for the wall?
“Good question,” Miller said, promising to research it. He said the wall is in good condition.