With city officials chomping at the bit, a room full of nearly 100 Worthington Hooker School community members agreed Thursday to let the city go full-steam ahead with an appeal to this week’s Superior Court decision that barred New Haven from building a new K‑8 school on Whitney Avenue.
The meeting, a public hearing for Hooker staff and families only, took place in the church sanctuary of the proposed site for the school, at 691 Whitney Ave. in the East Rock neighborhood.
The city has been trying to find a permanent home for Hooker School students. Because of overcrowding in the original building, Hooker has been sending its older students to an annex in the former St. Stanislaus Church schoolhouse. The city set its eye on a Whitney Avenue property back in 2002 for a new building.
The property, now a funky 1950s church, would be renovated into a middle school for grades 3 to 8. Grades K‑2 would be housed at the Canner Street facility, currently under renovation. The city passed zoning amendments to accommodate the Whitney Avenue project, and secured approval for funding from the state.
This week, as the city was already reaching out to construction firms, a neighbor-prompted court appeal reached a conclusion: Judge Anthony DeMayo in New Haven Superior Court ruled the project had to stop. The city had gone through illegal “spot zoning” to make way for the school, invading and disrupting a zone of single-family housing on nearby Everit Street.
“We were out to bid for phase one of the construction just as the decision hit,” a flustered Susan Weisselberg, the public school rebuilding chief, said Thursday. Expressing “disappointment,” and hoping to keep neighbors in the loop, city leaders called the meeting to see how the Hooker community wanted to proceed: Risk the delay of an appeal? Seek another site?
Empassioned city officials didn’t take long, however, to reveal how they really felt: gung-ho for an appeal.
“When I read the decision in our case, I was heartsick,” said Ed Mattison, an East Rock alderman and former city government lawyer. In all his years working in zoning law for the city, “I’ve never seen anything like this.” “What upset me most was the attack on us … it felt like the court was telling us we didn’t know what we were doing” when the city decided to build on the site.
Schools chief Reggie Mayo joined in: “Let me just say I’m somewhat frustrated: The highest-achieving school in the city of New Haven and I can’t deliver a school for you!”
Mayo advocated appealing the case not just on legal grounds but on principle. Not fighting the case “has all kinds of repercussions.” “People would look back at this thing as a precedent” —” neighbors fight in court, and the city backs down. “I think we should move forward with this appeal.”
City lawyers, reflecting on whether they had a good enough case to push to the State Supreme Court said “Yes.” Joseph Williams, of Shipman & Goodwin, advised: We are “still convinced in the correctness of the decision to select this site.” “We were surprised by it frankly, but we are by no means beaten.”
Judge DeMayo ruled the city acted improperly when it re-zoned the parcel to make way for the school. The lot had been split between high-density residential (RH‑1) on the Whitney side and single-family residential (RS‑1) on the Everit side. The city both changed the lot to RH‑1 and redefined RH‑1 so that “existing institutional properties may be used as-of-right for elementary and secondary schools…”
To DeMayo, the zoning change smelled of “spot zoning” —” reclassifying a small area of land in a way that “disturb[s] the tenor of the surrounding neighborhood.” He also noted the city’s own zoning rules prevent non-conforming structures from being expanded into nearby lots.
Williams [pictured at right with Mattison] said DeMayo overstepped his bounds: “He put himself into the shoes of the Board of Aldermen and City Plan Commission and decided what he would have done,” instead of deferring to city legislators. DeMayo “usurped the role and the authority of those boards,” Williams charged.
OK, but should the city seek a second legal opinion before moving forward with the appeal? asked one mother in the audience.
Weisselberg replied she’d taken an “informal canvass” of her lawyer friends and decided an appeal made sense. The city corporation counsel, Tom Ude, backed her up: his attorneys reviewed the case and agreed, he said.
Can they wait?
Sitting in what would become the school auditorium, there was no doubt the crowd believed in the site. When Weisselberg called out, “This site is the one we want!”, the crowd broke out in applause.
For the most part, they seemed sold on making the appeal, but some anxious parents, with fast-growing children playing in the church basement below, wondered what their options were. Was the court case worth the wait and possible failure? Should we form a parent committee now to search for backup sites?
Parents were quick to toss around ideas for other sites. Can we coopt the East Rock Magnet School once it’s rebuilt ? What about kicking Celentano out? Or plopping modular classrooms in the Whitney Avenue Church parking lot? (The city already owns the lot.) Reggie Mayo said “no” to the first two.
Some veteran parents said they didn’t need to look any further —” they’d been through years of searching. “We know that any alternative will be inferior,” declared Bob Solomon, parent of two Hooker students with one on the way.
Neither did Principal Carol Kennedy: “This building has everything that we need. … The kids deserve an auditorium and they deserve a gym. Don’t lose sight of what we can have.”
Others pushed for a parent committee to start searching, pronto.
City leaders made a soft committment —” they’d peruse old research, but wouldn’t form a full-fledged planning committee at least until they know if the appeal will be heard, said Weisselberg.
The city must submit a request for an appeal by May 17. By the summer, Williams said the city will know if the appeal will be heard or rejected. At that point the city would push the case to State Supreme Court and hopefully wrap things up in a year or so.
Then, construction would take another 18 months, said Weisselberg.
What’s going to happen to our third- and fourth- graders while we wait? the most anxiety-prompting question remained. Currently, the plan is to squeeze those grades into temporary sites: fourth grade with the 5 – 8 school in St. Stan’s, and third-grade in with the K‑2’s at the Canner Street building. But keeping that squashed arrangement, which impacts the art and music classes, isn’t ideal for more than one year. Weisselberg sighed. That was a question for another meeting another night.
In the back of the room, a few muffled opponents (who had their chance to speak at numerous other public hearings) spoke out after the meeting. They said they did not comment during the hearing because pre-event announcements made clear the hearing was for Hooker staff and families only.
“The city has really steered this solution and it’s not a solution,” remarked Paulette Cohen, an Everit Street resident (pictured debating Ed Mattison). RH‑1 was meant to “keep the institutional growth out,” she said. If you let institutional growth onto the street, “The whole historic character of this area is going to change.”
Responding to the assertion that there is no other good site for the school, Cohen suggested East Rock Magnet School. “They’re going to tear it down anyway,” and the kids are bused in from outside the neighborhood.
Fellow Everit resident Virginia Shiller said she found it “disturbing” that what was couched as a chance for public input was in reality a foredrawn conclusion. “The purpose of this meeting was to get your support for the appeal.”