Nemerson’s Return To Redev Role Advances

Matthew Nemerson took one step closer to returning to City Hall — not to his former role as economic development administrator, but instead as a volunteer member of the city’s Redevelopment Agency Advisory Council. 

That was the outcome of the latest Board of Alders Aldermanic Affairs Committee meeting, which took place in the Aldermanic Chamber on the second floor of City Hall.

The committee alders voted unanimously in support of Mayor Justin Elicker’s appointment of Nemerson to serve on the redevelopment board through December 2025. His appointment now heads to the full Board of Alders for further discussion and a final vote.

What exactly does the city’s redevelopment agency do? According to the city’s website, the board ​“works to approve redevelopment plans after receiving approval from the City’s City Plan Commission. This body shall also be authorized to acquire real property required for redevelopment purposes, by purchase, exchange or gift.” 

During the height of mid-20th century urban renewal, the Redevelopment Agency was a powerful designer and implementer of rebuilding plans in the city. The agency and its board have since been relegated to a minor advisory role, with periodic attempts to increase its relevance. The agency most recently made a (brief) appearance in the Independent in this article about the city and the Redevelopment Agency selling the publicly owned land underneath the FBI building on State Street to an affiliate of the Fusco Corporation, which already owned the building that sat on the property itself. And click here for a 2017 article about how the late Brian McGrath, who was a member of the city’s redevelopment agency, won hard-earned community support for letting the agency use eminent domain to hold slumlords accountable in the Dwight neighborhood.

Nemerson last worked in City Hall under then-Mayor Toni Harp as the city’s top economic development official. He served in that role from January 2014 to December 2018. He told the alders that, during his time at City Hall, he worked frequently with the redevelopment agency.

The first question that Quinnipiac Meadows Alder Gerald Antunes had for Nemerson at the Thursday night hearing was: ​“Can you tell us something about yourself that we don’t already know?”

“This is the first time in my adult life that I’ve found myself not on a board or commission,” Nemerson told the committee. ​“And I miss it.” He said he has spent most of his adult life in New Haven and Connecticut politics since long before his days leading the city’s economic development administration, making his entrance in 1978 as a congressional intern for U.S. Sen. Abraham Ribicoff and even running for mayor in 2013. 

Nemerson studied urban renewal as a college student and has worked on many development projects throughout his career in his role as economic development administrator, but also before that as vice president and chief operating officer of the Science Park Development Corporation and with the Greater New Haven Chamber of Commerce. He has served on many public boards, including the city’s parking authority.

Backed up by his decades of experience in the field, Nemerson expressed to the committee his understanding of the harm that redevelopment agencies, like New Haven’s which was founded in 1950, have done. 

“Redevelopment agencies are among the most powerful tools we have,” he said, ​“and they were put together to bring equity. But many have gone awry and actually done some serious damage.”

After his interview with the committee, Nemerson told the Independent that as a board member of the Redevelopment Agency, he hopes to take some of the agency’s previous projects on State Street, Olive Street, and elsewhere and help them accomplish their original goals, bringing equity to those streets. 

He said he will work to ​“find out how to make these plans successful without any more redevelopment.” Essentially, he wants to redevelop these areas without tearing any existing infrastructure down, as previous iterations of the agency have done.

Alders asked Nemerson about whether he felt burnt out after a long career as a public servant. He said that a prospective return to the agency made him feel as invigorated and dedicated to public service as ever. 

“I’m delighted to be a citizen of New Haven,” he said. ​“It is one of a few communities that still has the diversity, spirit, and passion that America was founded on.” He expressed appreciation for the way that New Haven lifts up people from all walks of life. ​“All people here are our people.” Nemerson told alders that he is dedicated to making the city work for everyone.

Nemerson was not the only appointee to the Redevelopment Agency to gain the support of the committee on Thursday night. The nomination of Christine Kim, a longtime New Haven resident and mother of two, was also approved unanimously by the committee.

Like Nemerson, Kim acknowledged the harm that urban renewal has brought to vulnerable communities in New Haven. She told the committee that the most important step toward changing this harm is to listen. ​“I am not an urban planner,” she said. ​“The most important thing is for me to listen,” to residents and planning experts alike.

Kim, who founded AAPI New Haven in response to anti-Asian hate and what she saw as a ​“lack of pan-Asian organization and leadership,” said she hopes to listen especially to voices that have previously been ignored in the city.

She was not present at the end of the meeting to hear the alders vote in her favor, telling them at the end of her interview that it was ​“bath night” for her children and she had to get home. Kim and Nemerson did exchange whispered congratulations in between their interviews before parting for the night.