Next Vlock House Must Fit Block’s Design

The city has agreed to sell a vacant Hill lot to Columbus House for the construction of a new affordable home.

That agreement comes with a catch: the building, to be designed by Yale School of Architecture students, must fit the look and feel of the existing neighborhood. Or else no deal.

The city’s Property Acquisition and Disposition (PAD) Committee this past Thursday unanimously approved the city’s plans to sell for $3,000 the 8,200 square-foot vacant lot at 162 – 168 Plymouth St. to the Hill-based homeless shelter nonprofit.

Columbus House plans to build on the lot a three-family house consisting entirely of affordable rental apartments. The new home will be designed by Yale School of Architecture students, who are in the process of crafting competing designs for the project as part of the school’s annual Jim Vlock First Year Building Project initiative. The project produces an affordable home each year for a low-income New Haven family.

The approval came during a special meeting held by PAD, the arm of the Livable City Initiative (LCI) charged with overseeing the sale of city-owned property, on the fifth floor of City Hall.

Unlike with the first two affordable rentals built by Columbus House and the Yale Vlock students at 54 Adeline St. and 41 Button St., this Plymouth Street project comes with design-specific strings attached.

Evan Trachten, LCI’s acquisition and disposition coordinator, explained that, before Columbus House can close on the property acquisition, it must present a design to the LCI director that fits with the existing late-19th century architectural look and feel of the residential block.

Tracten said this requirement arose in part out of the local community management team’s initial reservations about the project. The team wound up submitting a letter of endorsement for the project, but on the condition that the community be a part of picking the final design.

Trachten explained the specific design requirements that must be met before Columbus House can buy the property:

• The house must be in the Queen Anne Style.

• It must incorporate the following elements: a steeply pitched gable roof with exposed rafter ends; bracketed bargeboards along gable rakes; and porches with turned posts and balusters and spindle work.

Trachten acknowledged that the new requirements might present a bit of a challenge to students already wrapping up their designs for the new house.

“Streetscape matters in neighborhoods,” he said. ​“We want it to blend in and enhance the neighborhood.”

Quinnipiac Meadows Alder Gerald Antunes agreed. ​“It could conceivably screw up the neighborhood if they come up with some modern or different type of design,” he said.

And so did city Deputy Economic Development Administrator Steve Fontana. ​“They’re getting it for $1,000 a unit,” he said. ​“They can afford a couple nice things for the neighborhood.”

Tracten said the sale price of $1,000 per unit is the city’s going rate when selling properties to nonprofits that agree to build affordable housing. In the subsequent contract with Columbus House, he said, will be a standard requirement that the units remain affordable for at least 20 years.

Jenna Montesano, the city’s new deputy director of zoning, said that the subsequent site plan for this project will have to be vetted by the City Plan Commission, since it involves three or more units of new residential construction.

“This external stuff will be looked at not only be LCI,” she said, ​“but by the City Plan Commission too” prior to Columbus House being able to pull building permits for the project.

AJ Artemel, the director of communications for the Yale School of Architecture, told the Independent on Friday afternoon that the school only learned of the new Vlock design requirements when this reporter reached out to the design competition’s coordinators on Friday.

Artemel said that ten teams of students have been working on designs for the new house since Jan. 15. ​“The final design decision will be on Monday following the final review,” he said.

He declined to comment on how the new design requirements will impact this year’s Vlock competition.

Columbus House Chief Real Estate Officer Carl Rodenhizer also declined to comment on how the new design requirements might impact the project.

Adam Hopfner, who oversees the Vlock project for the architecture school alongside Alan Organschi, said on Friday that he too was not then prepared to comment on the potential impact of these new design requirements.

“I’d love to talk with you,” Hopfner texted the Independent, ​“but we are working through a series of issues right now, and therefore it is premature to comment at this time.”