Yale Thwarted Again

Construction of a new 280,000 square-foot Yale science lab was held up yet again as people at City Hall talked for four hours about parking — then decided to stop talking and resume talking about parking in another month.

The talking took place Wednesday night at a public hearing of the Board of Alders Community Community Development and Legislation committees.

The meeting drew more than 150 people to City Hall Wednesday including construction workers, Yale employees for and against the parking plan, people who live in nearby towns like Hamden, and city officials.

The official purpose of the hearing was to take testimony and then vote on an annual ​“Overall Parking Plan” (OPP) Yale submitted for its properties in town.

The real purpose of the hearing was to either advance or not advance Yale’s ability to build stuff in town, in this case a delayed six-story new Gibbs biology lab at Whitney and Sachem Streets on Science Hill, a project that requires no changes in parking. (Yale plans to tear down an existing lab there to build the new one.)

A new rule passed by the the Board of Alders, an amendment of Section 65 of the city’s zoning ordinance, requires the board to OK a broader OPP for all properties before Yale or Yale-New Haven Hospital can obtain regulatory permission for any new building projects.

That in effect gives the alders — a majority of whom belong to or are supported by Yale’s UNITE HERE union locals — a way to block university plans based on parking, whether or not parking is an issue in the regulatory approval.

Tensions have grown between Yale and UNITE HERE over the loss of union positions on campus, an upcoming contract negotiation, and efforts to unionize graduate student teachers. Meanwhile, people in the Hill and Dixwell have complained that Yale’s growth has harmed their ability to park near their homes.

Against that backdrop, the alders had waited months to hold a hearing on the new OPP, a process that never took place in the past. They started the hearing Wednesday night. But after 40 people spoke over four hours and 28 others remained on a list, the alders decided to suspend the committee hearing without voting on the OPP, and to resume the hearing next month.

Yale and city business leaders characterize the parking dispute as a political/labor sideshow that is slowing down needed development in town. Alders argue that Yale, like everybody in New Haven, must abide by public reviews whether it likes it or not; and that parking concerns in town are real.

The 40 speakers Wednesday night covered the ills of transit, transportation and parking, in and around the city, and how Yale University does or doesn’t contribute to those ills.

That decision once again pushed back the university’s ability to move forward on the Science Hill project, and further delayed the employment of some 280 construction workers for the project. Combined with other stalled building projects in town, the decision puts in jeopardy not just those and other jobs but millions of dollars in permit fees that were included in the coming fiscal year city budget that the alders recently approved.

The decision to hold the meeting open and to reconvene to continue the public hearing on July 27 came over the objection of two Westville alders, Richard Furlow and Darryl Brackeen Jr.

Furlow suggested to his colleagues that with nearly 30 people who signed up to speak still patiently sitting in the audience that they push through by asking the remaining speakers to speak specifically to the item at hand.

“For the people who have been waiting it might be advisable to tailor the testimony to what is actually on the table,” Furlow told East Rock Alder Jessica Holmes, who was co-chairing the meeting with Dwight Alder Frank Douglass. ​“This has been a very broad hearing, and we’ve heard very little said about what’s actually being voted on.”

Furlow pointed out that the alders are in summer session, which means that the full board is meeting only once a month to conduct its business. That means even if the OPP passes out of committee next month, it has to wait for two full Board of Alders meetings to approved.

Holmes said that anyone who gave testimony Wednesday would be allowed to do so, even if it strayed from the point. That happened often during the hearing, as people complained about everything from parking problems downtown to the inefficiency of CT Transit.

“I’ll not be cutting people off just in the interest of speeding things up,” she said to the applause of the audience. Ultimately, alders voted to continue the hearing.

“That wasn’t my suggestion,” Furlow pointed out.

When alders passed the new rule last December requiring the annual OPP review, they said their concern was to tackle the shortage of parking on city streets. So they passed a companion resolution that would create a task force to examine broader parking issues, to include representatives from neighborhoods and from Yale. But that task force has yet to be appointed. (Meanwhile, City Plan staff has recommended to alders that they approve the OPP.)

The Science Hill project is the first test of how alders are looking to wield their new review power.

Yale: Is This Really About Parking?

University officials maintained that the Gibbs lab project has no impact on parking. And that the OPP discussion shouldn’t be a basis for holding it up.

Associate Vice President for New Haven Affairs and University Properties Lauren Zucker and attorney Joe Hammer pointed out at Wednesday’s hearing that many of the discussed parking problems — including disputes between residents and Yale employees and enforcement of posted residential zones — are in the purview of the city, not Yale, to correct.

Zucker said that the university’s OPP has been on the books for alders and anyone else to see since 1998, and is updated annually. The plan was most recently referenced and open for scrutiny in public hearings held in 2009 and 2010 for projects at the School of Management and for the new residential colleges — projects in which alders had a hand in approving.

She spoke of how Yale offers employees alternatives to driving to work, including shuttle services, guaranteed rides homes for those who take mass transit, van pools, discounted memberships with Zipcar, park and ride options for suburbanites, and even showers for those who bike or walk to the job. Because some people choose to park on public streets for free, the university has roughly 1,800 parking spaces in its system that are underutilized.

Alders like Jeanette Morrison pressed Zucker about what she saw as Yale’s failure to provide a study showing the impact of the OPP on the neighborhoods like Dixwell. She asked whether Yale knows what neighbors have to say about the parking impact of university plans and how to minimize parking problems.

Zucker said alders were provided a point-in-time study conducted by the city annually. She also said university officials have met with the Dixwell’s community management team about the Science Hill project and heard no complaints.

Morrison suggested that people like her who live ​“up the hill” from the project are the ones most impacted. She said the management team may not be representative of that part of the community.

“I can’t control who comes to management team meetings,” Zucker said. She also said the university has no control over people parking legally on public streets, and it can’t ticket and tow people who park in residential zones. That said, Zucker said, the university is willing to engage in the process of finding solutions that would benefit the city through the yet to be established task force.

Marchand Explains

Westville Alder Adam Marchand praised the university for its efforts to encourage its employees to drive less. But he told officials up front that he sees the new process of reviewing the overall parking plan as a way to encourage it to do more.

He asked Zucker and Hammer if they believe that the university complies with the parking standards in the city’s zoning ordinance — ​“yes or no?”

Hammer’s response: Yes, but. Some of the university’s building predate the city’s zoning ordinances and are not subject to the modern rules that govern building projects now because they have grandfather status.

“After the ​‘90s all [projects] have been the subject of zoning procedures,” Hammer said. ​“As part of all those applications a determination was made about whether parking was required based on what was being built and how it was to be used as part of an engaged parking plan.”

Hammer pointed to the two most recent projects that alders approved, the School of Management and Yale’s new residence colleges. As part of the zoning approval process, Yale submitted a traffic study that determined the level of parking demand and whether the university had the overall available spaces to serve those projects.

“Every project that Yale has done has gone through zoning and had a review of the parking required to determine if it was going provide adequate capacity in plan to do it,” Hammer added. ​“So yes, we believe we are in compliance with applicable city requirements.”

Marchand asked the question a different way: Does the university provide all the space required by ordinance? Hammer said the short answer is yes, but again he reiterated that one has to keep in mind that an overall parking plan doesn’t apply modern zoning requirements to buildings that predate the city’s having a zoning ordinance. It also reflects any prior approvals and granted requests for relief from certain conditions, all of which have to be approved by the Board of Zoning Appeals and in some cases the alders.

Still dissatisfied with the response, Marchand went through a math exercise that he said showed — taking into account all of Yale’s current employees and students — the university may not have the 1,800-space surplus, but a deficit instead.

Zucker responded that like many developers, Yale has applied and received special exceptions to parking rules particularly for those buildings that predate the city’s zoning ordinances.