Many were using canes, some, like Willa Porter, walkers. But, in words of one of their leaders, the residents of the 904 Howard Ave. were nevertheless far from feeble as they brought their opposition to a developer’s plans for their block to a City Plan Commission hearing in continued spirited opposition to granting a developer, Intercontinental Real Estate, of Boston, a key zoning change needed for them to proceed with their redevelopment of the block bounded by Howard, Sylvan, Ward, and Legion Avenues.
The crowd came to Wednesday night’s meeting to speak against a proposed zoning change key to the plans of Intercontinental Real Easte of Boston to redevelop the block near Yale-New Haven Hospital’s soon-to-be-built cancer center, a block bounded by Howard, Sylvan, Ward, and Legion Avenues.
After hours of passionate testimony on both sides, commissioners approved the zoning change.
Intercontinental already owns some 17 properties on the parcel. It is requesting a zoning change to BD‑2, which would allow the company to build medical office buildings, in all likelihood a garage servicing it, perhaps a hotel, some retail and some housing.
The developers continued to decline to provide the community details of what exactly it wants to build. Nor, the company said, can it respond to repeated specific promises articulated in a proposed community benefits package, until the zoning change is granted.
That didn’t sit well with residents, who repeatedly invoked their recent experience with Yale-New Haven Hospital’s undermining a union election, which had been one of the community benefits promised as part of the deal to build the new cancer center in the same area.
Speaker after speaker — such as resident John Britt, who said, “you make money and you make dust for us to breathe” — invoked concerns about poor air quality, huge new traffic jams, and lack of confidence that the 500 hundred permanent jobs projected to come to the area could actually be utilized by local people.
The people who live at the 904 Howard public-housing high-rise are elderly and/or disabled.
“Our elderly and our kids can’t work construction jobs,” said Alderwoman Jackie James, “and we haven’t seen plans for permanent benefits.”
City Plan Chair Patricia King repeatedly reminded speakers in the public hearing that the issue under consideration was the zoning change only, and no specific plans could be offered yet. But the demand for the details was persistent, as were fears of more of what local activist Ted Gardner called “monstrous” buildings, few community benefits, and, most of all neighbors being left out of the process and being treated without dignity.
“One of these days the city is going to be no longer called New Haven but Yale Haven,” Willa Porter said. She revealed that the controlled fury Intercontinental was getting an earful of at the hearing, despite outreach efforts over the past year, was in some ways the rage residents still feel toward Yale-New Haven Hospital.
It was a continuation of the public hearing of June 20 in which the developers were charged by the City Plan commissioners with going out into the community to explain plans and solicit feedback. In the month since, there had been meetings with various management teams, job opportunity fairs, and a community meeting on July 11 at Career High School, which is just across the street from the proposed development area.
Little of this, however, was handled well in the eyes of those appearing before the commission. There were disputes over whether flyers were sent out soon enough and to all the affected residents.
This woman, Tawana Galbraith, a 20-year resident on Sylvan Avenue, was exercised. “You used the electricity, the plug in my house, to help you with the job fair, but I didn’t get any flyer about it. Nor did my neighbors,” she complained.
The group expressing the greatest anger and anxiety was the public-housing tenants at 904 Howard, which the Housing Authority of New Haven (HANH) is considering selling to Interncontinental; the idea would be to build market-rate housing there and move public-housing apartments to a new development on a nearby block.
That has fueled 904 tenants’ concerns about eviction or displacement. Their building at this point is not, technically, part of the developers’ plans, but it is slated for its own re-development by HANH, and a request for proposals to proceed with the first stage of the process has been sent out. In a formal letter to the commission, HANH Executive Director Jimmy Miller reiterated HANH residents’ protections under federal law, stated HANH had no relationship with Intercontinental, but supported the zoning change.
In response to questions from legal-aid lawyer Amy Eppler-Epstein, representing the tenants of 904, Will Smith of Intercontinental said that he and another company, Trinity Real Estate, which is currently the developer of Quinnipiac Terrace, might indeed be interested in responding to the RFP to develop 904, since they already own half the block it sits on. But only if the zoning change passed.
“We have no interest in displacing people,” replied Smith. “And we will look into working with various community groups to include affordable housing as part of the mix.”
“Look,” said Alderwoman James (pictured with Alderwoman Dolores Colon) to Peter Palandjian, Intercontinental’s CEO, during a break in the two and a half hour hearing. “You say you talked to the community, but you really haven’t. You need to talk to the people in CORD [Community Organized for Responsible Development]. They’re as important, even more important than City Hall. I can’t say I support your zoning change because the communication has been so poor. I think you’re going to get your zoning change, but remember final approval is with the Board of Aldermen, and we’re not going to give it without genuine community input.”
“I love you,” added Colon, “because you’re all union and I am too, and I’m leaning toward you, but not without your being involved with CORD and all the people who still have a bitter taste in their mouth from the struggles with the hospital.”
When Palandjian replied he had spoken with CORD, he was informed he’d had the wrong group from CORD. He turned to Jackie James and said, “Can I ask you to give me a detailed map of the community, all the groups involved.”
Not all the speakers issued warnings or cautions. Even some who did couched their criticism in a modicum of approval for Intercontinental’s intentions.Tony Butler, a CORD co-chair, said Intercontinental was tossed in the meat grinder here that Yale has created.
On the “pro” side, Kevin Burns, speaking on behalf of the Ironworkers of Connecticut, said Intercontinental had a great record and there would be jobs for the whole community. “I’m working with [city equal opportunities chief] Nicole Jefferson,” he said, “in her workforce programs. I’m looking for women to participate in the building trades.
“I have people who came out of halfway houses, have come through our journeymen program, and now are homeowners in New Haven.”
The city’s economic development administrator, Kelly Murphy, came to lend her support for what she called appropriate development in the “medical district.” Tom Roger (not pictured), who works with Gilbane Construction and the citywide school building construction program, said that Intercontinental is known in the business for keeping its commitments.
At least 15 opposing speakers told of feeling cut out of the process or expressed skepticism about any genuine community benefits, or that the housing component of the project would ever be built. Palandjian (pictured below) made an assessment of this, his first public appearance in New Haven on the project:
“It is these peoples’ neighborhood. It’s right they should feel this way. It’s too bad they feel so embittered by their previous experience. But we’re the last people they should oppose, believe me. We’ve got to make it clearer that we just can’t say we’ll be able to provide this percentage for asthma, and this much for little league. How can we do that until we figure out our profitability? And we can’t do that until we get this change and develop the plans further.”
Rev. Jim Richardson of Sacred Heart Church in the Hill spoke toward the end of the proceedings and drew a larger context. “I have a parishioner on Vernon Street,” he said, which is nearby, but not in Intercontinental’s block. “And Yale has recently offered him money for his house. Something else is going on here, another real estate surge.
“What is Yale’s longer, five, ten-year plan in the neighborhood? I think we should know that too. Based on Yale’s poisoning the recent election at the hospital, the community’s got as much confidence in them as the country does in George Bush. I do like your [Intercontinental] union connection. And I’m wondering if you’d consider running a hospital in our neighborhood!”
Gwen Mills, speaking on behalf of the Connecticut Center for the New Economy, added to what Richardson said: “Every two years there’s a call for new zoning here. This is really bad planning. There seems to be an overall plan for a medical district here, but residents are not being involved. There’s a pattern here: an institution develops a property. Other properties are vacant, fences are put up, a dead area is created. Then there’s a call for re-zoning. It’s happening elsewhere too.”
An hour after most of the speakers left, the commissioners deliberated. East Rock Alderman and City Plan Commissioner Roland Lemar said Intercontinental had acquitted itself well, reaching out to the community as best it could, given New Haven’s sometimes hard-to-fathom communities within communities. Both City Engineer Richard Miller (not pictured) and Chairwoman Patricia King (pictured) in effect took HANH to task. A letter was fine and good, they said, but HANH officials should have been present at the hearing. “What I found most touching,” Miller said, “was residents’ deep worry about what was going to happen to them.”
Everyone asked Smith and Palandjian to increase their outreach and to try to move beyond residents’ anger at Yale-New Haven by keeping their own, Intercontinental’s, pledges as they move through the process.
King asked City Plan Executive DIrector Karyn Gilvarg to provide the commission with her sense of the overall development plans, including Yale-New Haven’s, for the area. Only one commissioner, Roy Smith, offered a specific warning: “I’ll vote for it now,” he said, “but in future appearances here, for example, at site plan review, I will not if there is not ongoing and sustained communication with the community.”
By a voice vote, the change to a BD‑2 zone passed unanimously.