City Sells Park; Housing Call Prevails

The Board of Alders voted overwhelmingly in support of trading a Kensington Street park for 15 new affordable apartments — but only after an impassioned debate about the relative merits of building low-income housing atop public green space.

Local legislators took that vote Monday night during the latest regular bimonthly meeting of the full Board of Alders. The virtual meeting was held on Zoom and YouTube Live.

In a voice vote, a vast majority of alders backed selling Kensington Playground — located at 17, 21, 25, 29, and 33 Kensington St., between Edgewood Avenue and Chapel Street — for $1 to the Boston-based landlord, The Community Builders (TCB).

The developer plans to build 15 new units of affordable housing atop the current park site, and to limit rents at those new units to tenants earning 60 percent or less of the area median income (AMI).

The planned residential construction is part of TCB’s $30 million Phase 2 redevelopment of the adjacent Kensington Square apartment complex, which should see the rehab of 88 additional Dwight apartments alongside the development of 15 new units.

The land swap, which also involves upgrades to existing Dwight green spaces and the creation of new public parkland in Newhallville (see details below), sparked ardent if conflicted dissent from three of the city legislature’s 30 alders Monday night.

Those who spoke out against the public park sale — Dwight Alder Frank Douglass, East Rock Alder Anna Festa, and Downtown Alder Abby Roth — echoed criticisms raised by a dozen neighbors who gathered in-person in the park to protest the green giveaway during a live-streamed, virtual committee hearing earlier this month.

Douglass, Festa and Roth acknowledged the city’s need for more and better affordable housing. But they argued that city residents should not have to pick between that housing goal and preserving public parkland and affordable housing.

They argued that there are plenty of dilapidated buildings elsewhere in the city that could be rehabbed into low-income units. That city dwellers always deserve to have easy access to clean, open, tree-lined outdoor areas. And that that is especially true during a public health crisis that has kept so many bottled up inside for months.

The deal’s opponents ultimately lost out to an overwhelming majority of their colleagues, led by Board of Alders President and West River Alder Tyisha Walker-Myers, who represents the neighborhood where Kensington Playground currently sits.

The land swap’s proponents argued that the city has long suffered from a dearth of affordable housing, and that that need is particularly acute during the ongoing pandemic. So many New Haveners have lost their jobs and have seen their incomes reduced, they argued, and need some affordable place to live at a time when much of the city’s new housing construction consists of market-rate and luxury apartments.

Some of the alders also stated that Kensington Playground has a troubled history as a neighborhood hotspot for drug dealing and other illegal activity.

Walker-Myers ultimately shot that rationale down in her summary of why she believed this land sale should go through.

There is drug dealing all over the city, not just in Ward 23, she said. ​“Those types of things happen everywhere. This decision isn’t based on that. This decision is based on the need for affordable housing and to create a better quality of life for the people who already reside there” in the Kensington Square apartments.

“We all care about health,” she continued. ​“We all care about green space. But our neighborhood won’t be absent of green space,” even if Kensington Playground is built up into apartments.

Because the vote was taken by voice, and not by roll call, one could not tell exactly who voted in support of the deal and who voted against amidst the cacophony of ​“Yeas” and subsequent ​“Nays.” The majority of voices clearly spoke up with ​“Yea” votes, and Dixwell Alder and President Pro Tem Jeannette Morrison called the item in favor of selling the parkland.

Park Swap Supporters: ​“We Need Affordable Housing”

While the crux of the land deal involved trading Kensington Playground for $1 so that TCB can build 15 new apartments there, the agreement also requires TCB to invest $80,000 in improvements at the nearby, city-owned Day Street Park on Chapel Street, and to make further upgrades at a Garden Street green space.

The city, meanwhile, has committed as part of the land swap to create new public parks in Newhallville at vacant, publicly-owned lots at 100 – 102 Shelton Ave., 16 Thompson St., 24 Thompson St., and 506 Winchester Ave.

Monday’s final vote comes several weeks after the aldermanic Community Development Committee unanimously recommended approval, two months after the Parks Commission and City Plan Commission voted in support, and a full year after the City Plan Commission first approved the site plan for the proposed new construction project.

“I am the alder for the area, and it’s difficult when we talk about affordable housing and whether we should replace the park,” Walker-Myers said. ​“I am confident that we did our due diligence in bringing this information to the community. And we need affordable housing in the city.”

She encouraged her colleagues to think of the welfare of current Kensington Square residents who stand to benefit from rehabbed apartments as part of TCB’s broader planned Phase 2 redevelopment of the complex. And she pointed out that there will still be green space in the neighborhood, including the to-be-improved public park at Day Street and Chapel Street.

“I know this is a really hard decision,” she admitted. ​“Everybody should have access to green space. But we will still have some green space in
Dwight/West River.”

Beaver Hills Alder and Community Development Committee Chair Brian Wingate agreed — about the need for affordable housing, and about the difficult nature of the vote.

“I have been torn by this project,” he said. ​“On the one hand, creating more affordable housing is a stated priority for the Board of Alders. On the other hand, no one likes to see parks closed, reduced green spaces on blocks, and decreasing recreational opportunities.”

After much thought, he said, ​“the need for affordable housing trumps the park’s relocation.” He said the loss of Kensington Playground will be offset by improvements to nearby green spaces and the creation of new parks in Newhallville.

“We must do something to balance the hundreds of units of high-priced apartments being built by for-profit developers” all over the city.

Newhallville Alder Delphine Clyburn said that the alders had to decide Monday night between preserving green space or preserving people’s lives.

“It’s time that we give the least ones of this city a chance to live,” she said. ​“It’s important that humans have somewhere to live and to grow and to raise their children.”

Beaver Hills Alder Jill Marks agreed. ​“This is a hard and difficult thing to do,” she said. ​“But I mean people, people, people. They need housing.”

Fair Haven Alder Ernie Santiago, who is the aldermanic representative on the city’s Parks Commission, said that commissioners agreed as they approved the Kensington Playground sale that this would be the only time they would allow the city to sell green space for construction.

“It will not happen again,” Santiago said. ​“We will not give any more land for housing.”

East Rock Alder Charles Decker, meanwhile, criticized the project’s opponents for being faint-hearted in pursuing the Board of Alders’s stated goals of encouraging the creation, maintenance, and preservation of affordable housing.

“In order to address the affordable housing crisis in this city, we’re going to have to make trade-offs,” he said. ​“Some are going to be difficult. But housing is a fundamental right. And to be in favor of affordable housing in theory, or only if the project is absolutely perfect, is wholly inadequate to address the crisis we face.”

“It’s A Drug Haven”

Some of the alders who backed the public land deal Monday night built their argument off of the Kensington Street park’s history and reputation as a dangerous hub of illicit activity.

“It’s a drug haven,” said West Rock/West Hills Alder Honda Smith, who said she came to know that green space — and its assorted problems — well during her 30 years working in city government.

“Knowing and seeing is two different things. I’ve been in the field and I’ve seen that area. I am in favor of the project for more affordable housing.”

Edgewood Alder Evette Hamilton also described the park as hosting illicit activities.

“The park was never used for the right purposes,” she said. ​“I cannot tell you the amount of bad things that have happened there. A lot of drugs, drug paraphernalia, bad misconduct. A lot of bad stuff.”

Morris Cove Alder Sal DeCola said that he used to deliver mail to the area when he worked as a mail carrier for the postal service. ​“The park was never used as a park,” he said. ​“I feel that our Board must stay strong and look at the bigger goal. It’s about families, quality of life, and the $30 million project that will rejuvenate an area for a more positive lifestyle.”

Park Swap Critics: ​“A Matter Of Public Health”

The three alders who spoke out against the proposed land deal, including Douglass, who represents the eastern most of the Dwight neighborhood just to the east of Kensington Playground, warned against giving up green space in such a densely built up part of town.

“I get that we all need affordable housing, and we have made it a priority of ours,” he said. ​“But we also need not less, but more green space. It’s a matter of public health.” Both the Covid-19 pandemic and the long-term threat of climate change militate towards preserving trees and parks, he said.

“In the end, I have to vote my conscience. I do not support the closing or the sale of any parks in our city.”

Festa agreed. She said selling the green space would be a ​“disservice to the residents” of the neighborhood who are as deserving of open, pubic, green areas to enjoy as anyone else in New Haven.

“The density of affordable housing without green spaces takes away the social and mental health relief that residents feel when they are in parks,” she said. She pointed out that so many residential buildings across the city are currently boarded up. City government and private developers should focus on restoring those properties before they start building atop public park land.

And Roth insisted that the alders, and the city, shouldn’t have to pick between parks and affordable housing. ​“I’m confident that there are other parcels of land that aren’t currently green space” that can be converted to affordable housing. She pointed to the city’s sale of a blighted Humphrey Street lot for the development of 12 new apartments, including four affordable units, as an example of how to build affordable housing without losing parkland (see more below).

“Parks have so many important mental and physical benefits,” she said. In response to some of the alders who raised concerns about drug-dealing in Kensington Playground, Roth said, ​“The solution is not to eliminate the park. It is to work on improving it.”

Ultimately, the project’s critics lost out. And after over half an hour of debate, Morrison held the voice vote, and a majority of local legislators voted in support of the deal.

Humphrey Lot Sold For $25K; 12 Apts. En Route

The Kensington Playground sale wasn’t the only piece of city property sold off Monday night.

The alders also voted unanimously in support of selling a vacant former auto-service garage at 156 – 158 Humphrey St. to Urbane New Haven LLC for $25,000, a 27,750 square-foot vacant lot on Grand Avenue near Franklin Street to the city’s housing authority for $1,000, a 6,649 square-foot vacant lot on Franklin Street to the housing authority for $1,000, and a 1,742 square-foot corner lot on Washington Avenue to Glofesta Suggs for $2,613.

The public sale of the 5,790 square-foot corner lot at the corner of Humphrey Street and Mill River Street went to Urbane New Haven’s Eric O’Brien, who plans on developing 12 apartments at that site.

Six of the planned apartments will be two-bedrooms, and six will be studio apartments. Two of each apartment type — meaning four units in total — will be affordable units restricted for 20 years to tenants making no more than 60 percent of the area median income (AMI).

The public sales of the Grand Avenue and Franklin Street lots to the housing authority are to facilitate phase 2 of the housing authority’s redevelopment of the former Farnam Courts public housing complex, which is now known as Mill River Crossing. That redevelopment, to be built at 910 Hamilton St. behind the Phase 1 Mill River Crossing apartments, will see the demolition of the remaining vacant buildings of the 1940s-era complex and the construction of a total of 111 new residential units across 10 different townhouse-style buildings.

The Grand Avenue lot will be used as a roadway/driveway for the redeveloped apartments, and the Franklin Street lot will be used to widen the existing roadway and to relocate the existing trash receptacles currently located elsewhere on Franklin Street.

The public sale of the Washington Avenue corner lot, meanwhile, went to the owner of the adjacent property, who plans to use the newly acquired land as a driveway and parking spot for her single-family home.