These people don’t want their Dixwell Avenue church turned into a convenience store. They came to Tuesday’s Board of Zoning Appeals meeting to protest. So did other neighbors on Willard Street in Westville —‚Äù against a construction company seeking to turn a small storage barn into a two-story home.
Pastor Deandre Nixon stood with members of the Anointed Praise Tabernacle of Refuge Pentecostal Church Tuesday to support the continuance of his nascent church. The church, at 680 Dixwell Ave., just got started in January and has grown to about 15 people. Churchgoers don’t want to see their landlord, Zahra Holding LLC, change tenants when the lease is up.
Easton and Francis Wilson are eyeing the building for a potential convenience store that would sell groceries. They’ve gotten the OK from the landlord, but need BZA approval to bring in a convenience store to an otherwise residential zone. So they submitted a petition of 35 names in support of the project. None of those people came to the BZA meeting.
Those neighbors who did show up, around 20, called a store as a conduit to loiterers, trash, parked cars and noise. There’s already a small grocery store one block up the street at Dixwell and Bassett. Why do we need another one? they asked.
Neighbors near the other store spoke of picking up trash wrappers each morning outside their homes, people parking in front of their houses, and people “who tend to hang around these stores day and night with their volumes turned high.”
“It’s a cluttered area,” said Alderman Drew King, standing in for the ward’s alderman, Charles Blango. “All’s you’s asking for is trouble.”
Francis Wilson said if the convenience store idea didn’t go over, she’d consider changing plans —‚Äù running a supply store, with less frequent traffic, instead.
Further west, in Westville, one couple’s contentious plan to expand a small red barn into a two-story home was all but shot down on the BZA floor. Owners Aldona and Jacek Tarlowski aquired the property —‚Äù a storage shed once part of a larger plot, but now stuck back on a sliver of land behind others’ houses —‚Äù in October. They use it to store equipment for their A & J construction company, which specializes in rehabilitating historic homes.
The barn, at 155 Willard St., has been used as storage as long as neighbors can remember. The Tarlowskis, who live near Hartford, say they barely use the space as is. The building’s dilapidated. The couple hoped to renovate the barn into a two-story home, where they could move in. The new house would be very close to the neighboring lot, which disturbed some.
But what really drew a crowd —‚Äù almost two dozen fist-shaking neighbors —‚Äù was a letter sent out before the BZA that some took as a threat. Aldona Tarlowski, hoping to garner neighborhood support, sent out a letter presenting two options: Either 1) we “move our warehouse distribution center there and operate our business from this base,” bringing a fleet of 12 vans, or 2) we make this into a “lovely home.”
“If I’m not mistaken, it’s a threat,” retorted one neighbor. To him, the letter’s intent was clear: If you don’t support our home at the BZA, you will have to suffer the noise and commotion of a full-fledged distribution center in your backyards. One neighbor, Scott McLean, received the letter more diplomatically: “I wouldn’t characterize it as a threat, but rather as a false alternative.” But he still thought the proposed home wouldn’t fit the block.
Alderwoman Ina Silverman agreed: “The lot is just too small … That the owners claim they will ‘renovate’ the property is laughable since the structure appears from the outside to be rotted or otherwise missing parts.” Turning a falling-down barn on a sliver lot into a three-bedroom home just doesn’t make sense, she said. She gawked at the applicants’ “outrageous requests” for setback variances.
City Plan staff agreed, advising the BZA to deny the project. BZA members met the plan with skepticism, noting what the applicants called a “two-story building” was merely a small barn with a loft. In an early sign of rejection, they denied the Tarlowskis’ request to postpone the hearing.
Though no decision was immediately made, the Tarlowskis walked away defeated. Aldona Tarlowski said the couple will still move forward “renovating” the barn, which they plan to use for storage. As for her plans to move into the New Haven, she laughed at the idea. “With a welcome like this?”