Thomas MacMillan Photo
When the Peruvian Machu Picchu restaurant asked for permission to add a porch, the local top cop said the Annex neighborhood is just too rough for an outside seating area.
With that approach, “the ghetto will always be the ghetto,” responded a local developer.
The police view prevailed.
The developer, Alejandro De Frutos (at right in photo), appeared at the monthly Board of Zoning Appeals (BZA) meeting on Tuesday night at the Hall of Records. He was acting as an agent for his friends Edward Angulo (center) and Jose Valdivia (left), the Peruvian cousins who run the seven-year-old Machu Picchu restaurant at the corner of Farrren Avenue and Pardee Street.
With De Frutos’ help, Angulo and Valdivia asked for a special zoning exception to add a deck to the back of their restaurant.
The zoning board voted to deny the request, as the City Plan Department had previously recommended. Board members also heard opposition to the plan from Annex Alderman Al Paolillo.
The case of the rejected deck raises the question of how businesses and the city should respond to crime in neighborhoods: By staying inside until the streets get safer? Or moving out to claim public space?
The alderman shared the written remarks of District Manager Lt. Jeff Hoffman, who wrote that a deck is inappropriate for the area since it is “one of the most criminally active and violent” in the district.
Back at Machu Picchu on Wednesday, the day after the rejection of the deck proposal, Valdivia and Angulo argued that they are being prevented from improving the neighborhood. They said they’ve never had a criminal incident at their restaurant. An expanded business would allow them to create more jobs, they argued, and a deck might decrease crime in the area.
In the opinion of one urban design advocate, the city should have granted the restaurant porch permission, at least on a trial basis. With more “eyes on the street,” outdoor seating can help reclaim a neighborhood from crime, said Anstress Farwell, head of the New Haven Urban Design League.
In an advisory report, the City Plan Department recommended that the zoning board reject the porch petition. The report cites several reasons for rejection, including noise, traffic and parking, and a mismatch with the character of the neighborhood.
De Frutos, wearing shorts and a shirt that said “Fallen Dreams” on the front, sought on Tuesday night to rebut the City Plan report.
The porch would extend off the back of the restaurant, alongside Fulton Street, De Frutos said. There would be room for four or five tables.
The Machu Picchu cousins live in the building, above the restaurant, and they will always live there, De Frutos said. They’re not concerned about the noise, he said. The porch will only be open for about four months a year, and will close at 9:30 p.m. and will not play music outside, he said.
As for parking, the restaurant has more than the required number of spaces, he said.
The question of whether a deck fits in the neighborhood is “just a matter of opinion,” De Frutos said. Some people like vanilla; others like strawberry or even banana, De Frutos said. But everybody enjoys outdoor spaces, he said.
“Hi, Al. How are you?” said BZA Chair Cathy Weber warmly, as Alderman Paolillo (pictured) walked to the microphone. “How’s your father doing?”
“He’s doing fine,” said Paolillo.
“Yeah? Tell him I said hi,” said Weber.
Paolillo began by reading a letter written by Lt. Hoffman, the Annex’s top cop. The area around the Machu Picchu restaurant is “one of the most criminally active and violent” in the district, Hoffman wrote. Adding outdoor seating to the are would only make the situation worse, he wrote. Drug dealers could take advantage of the crowd on the porch to hide from police, Hoffman wrote.
Paolillo agreed with the letter. He also said the porch would create “traffic and noise issues.”
“I’m trying hard to figure out how the community benefits,” Paolillo said. A porch would have an “adverse impact on the folks who live there.”
De Frutos responded that drugs and violence are problems everywhere in the city, unrelated to the deck. “This is a plague that runs throughout the city,” he said.
De Frutos suggested maybe the lieutenant “who wrote this lovely letter” should be “out on the street instead of writing memos.”
The porch would be in a BA zone, De Frutos said. That’s a business zone, not a residential zone, he said.
“We’re talking about four tables,” he said. “How much noise can 12 or 14 people make?”
De Frutos later acknowledged there could be five tables.
“These people are trying to put something nice there,” De Frutos said, gesturing toward the cousins.
Machu Picchu has never had any trouble with the police, De Frutos said. “They have an untouchable record for the last 10 years.”
As the voting session began, De Frutos had his head down and fingers crossed on both hands.
Without discussion, Weber asked for votes from the board. She turned to board member Victor Fasano, who said he wasn’t yet ready to vote. Board member David Streever said he was still thinking.
“You want to vote now?” Fasano asked Weber.
“You want to chit-chat a little bit? We can chit-chat,” Weber replied.
Streever noted that the board had not heard any complaints from the restaurant’s neighbors.
Fasano said he was ready to vote.
The board voted unanimously to deny the application. Board member Regina Winters recused herself.
After the vote De Frutos said the board was standing in the way of businesspeople trying to improve their restaurant. The porch would not have been denied if Machu Picchu were downtown, he said. With city officials preventing people like Angulo and Valdivia from putting up a deck, “we’ll live in the ghetto forever,” De Fruto said.
He called down the hallway after Angulo, who walked away with his head down.
The next day, De Frutos gave a tour of the area where the porch was proposed. With outrage, he pointed out the crumbling sidewalk nearby, including a stretch of bare dirt with huge weeds growing in the middle. “Check it out! I’ve got trees!” De Frutos said pointing to a large specimen.
City officials came to look at the restaurant and decided a porch would look bad, De Frutos said. “But this looks so great!” he said, pointing to the sidewalk, his voice filled with sarcasm.
The city is saying, “We forgot this neighborhood. We forgot this block,” De Frutos said.
“But this is a disgrace!” he said, again with sarcasm, indicating where the porch would have been.
De Frutos said the area does suffer from criminal activity. But a porch would have a positive impact on that problem, he said. “It could have an effect on all these punks and thugs.”
If there were more successful businesses, maybe crime would move out of the area, De Frutos said. Or the criminals might decide to get a job “instead of selling drugs,” he said.
Inside the restaurant, Valdivia said there have been no police complaints about the restaurant in the seven years he and his cousin have owned it.
He said he wants to improve the neighborhood and provide jobs for people.
“We want to make the business better, make it look nice,” Angulo said.
“We only want to work,” said Valdivia.
On Wednesday afternoon, Franklin Cuevas was munching on “spicy sweet chili” flavored Doritos behind the counter of the J.P. Deli & Grocery, diagonally across from Machu Picchu. He said he’s seen crime decrease in the area in the four years he’s run the store. Still, he said doesn’t think the porch would be a good idea. Criminals would be able to watch people on the porch, wait until they got drunk, and then mug them as they leave, Cuevas said.
“My opinion is, in that area, it’s not good,” he said.
Farwell had a different take. After taking a look at the area on Google maps, she said she thought the BZA should have approved the porch. “I would think it would be worth some sort of trial run,” she said. The board could have restricted the hours of use, she said.
Farwell acknowledged that she hasn’t been to the area at night and that it “has had some really serious issues” with crime. It’s right near the highway, making it an easy spot for suburbanites to dip into New Haven to score drugs, Farwell said.
A porch could decrease crime, because of the increase in “eyes on the street,” Farwell said. That phrase refers to a “tried and true practice about how you create safe neighborhoods,” she said. Features like porches can increase foot traffic and increase the influx of people with “legitimate reasons to be there.” With lots of potential witnesses, potential criminals don’t hang around, she said.
“Any kind of bad behavior tends to avoid places where people are occupying the street in legitimate ways,” Farwell said.
A porch can even have other benefits, like slowing down traffic, Farwell said. “People like to look at people.”
A porch can also create “ownership of a corner,” she said. People will be more likely to pick up a cell phone to call in crimes, even getting the license plates of cars that speed by.
If Machu Picchu has a clean record with the police and health departments, if the owners pay their taxes, a porch would be “very much worth a trial run,” Farwell said.
Angulo and Valdivia said they were not sure if they will try again to get permission to add a porch. They said they feel intimidated every time they have to go in front of the Board of Zoning Appeals.