After Wall Collapses, Apartment-Permission Quest Collapses As Well

Here’s what neighbors in Wooster Square told the zoning board this week:

A landlord who allows a wall of an historic building to collapse should not be rewarded with legal permission to put in an under-sized basement apartment.

Here’s what the landlord’s attorney said:

We need that apartment to support a new wall to keep the building standing

Those arguments were made at Tuesday night’s Zoomed meeting of the Board of Zoning Appeals, which was considering a request concerning 335 St. John Street in Wooster Square.

Zoners sided with the neighbors.

The exterior wall of that historic 1852 building collapsed this May. Although the building was vacant, and had been for a year, neighbors in the immediate area had to be evacuated and sheltered at city expense.

Since then, owner Avi Meer and his insurance company have been squabbling about who might pay for a restoration of the rowhouse to its prior condition, attorney Ben Trachten reported.

Meanwhile, Meer has hired a builder to put in a basement studio apartment.

That would help to secure a replacement of the fallen wall, Trachten said. It would also provide another dwelling unit, indeed an affordable one, albeit underground and, at 672 feet, well below the 1,000 square feet the ordinance requires for a dwelling unit.

Trachten came on Meer’s behalf requesting a variance.

Neighbors showed up to blast the proposal.

“I’ve been following this,” said Ian Dunn, the chair of the Downtown/Wooster Square Community management team (DWSCMT). ​“And the side of the building fell off after the second notice of an unsafe structure.

“The city had to pick up the costs of sheltering people. It seems to me a pretty clear pattern of neglect by the property owner, and now they are seeking zoning relief to add another unit into a building they neglected?

“That doesn’t seem to be a way to shepherd good and appropriate development in our city. I’m opposed on the morals of it and we are putting a tiny apartment in the basement of a row house.”

“I don’t know how a collapse like that can be attributed to the owner who had just purchased it,” Trachten responded. ​“After a building collapse you’d think you would not want to erect barriers to a quick solution.”

New Haven Urban Design League President Anstress Farwell, a Wooster Square resident, referred Trachten to the vacant lot adjacent to the collapsed wall.

“I’m also concerned about the future of the side lot,” she said. ​“This was once the site of a now-lost historic building. It’s better to make a building on that site where people can live in healthy conditions above ground. That should be worked on rather than a basement unit with size reduction.”

She said that the management team has repeatedly asked the owner to attend one of its gatherings, to no result.

Trachten reminded attendees and commissioners that there is no legal obligation for a developer to come before a CMT. ​“There’s ample evidence that this current set of circumstances constitutes sufficient hardship to grant relief,” he said.

But the commissioners disagreed and the voted not to approve the variance. The vote was unanimous.