Thomas MacMillan Photo
Chapel and Howe.
Brian McGrath wants to bring dense, “European-style” development to Chapel West, instead of a Hamden-like stretch of businesses surrounded by parking lots. But first he’ll have to ensure his plan won’t mean gun shops and off-track betting or an extension of the Crown Street club district.
McGrath, the associate director of the Chapel West Special Services District, made that pitch last week at the monthly meeting of the City Plan Commission in City Hall. He’s looking for a zone change for a portion of the district, one that will allow denser development than is currently allowed. The new BD‑1 zoning would allow for greater Floor Area Ratios, and ease parking requirements for new buildings. It would also bring currently non-conforming uses into compliance.
But it could also open the door to uses prohibited under the current zoning, including gun shops, “adult cabarets,” and “teletheater facilities.” That possibility caused Yale University to write a letter to the City Plan Commission, asking commissioners not to approve the zoning change.
A former red-light district bridging downtown and the Dwight neighborhood, Chapel West transformed into a self-identified commercial and residential district in the late 1980s, attracting renovated apartment buildings and ethnic restaurants.
McGrath.
At the end of the last Wednesday night’s City Plan meeting, the commission decided to table the plan for now. McGrath said the next step is to draft a companion proposal that would modify the definition of BD‑1 zoning, to eliminate any objectionable uses. He said he’s confident the zoning revision and the zone change will go through in just a couple of months.
That’s little time to wait, considering the Chapel West Special Services District has been working on the zone change for five years, McGrath said.
Dean Sakamoto Architects.
Map of the area of proposed change (inside dotted line).
The plan amounts to a zone change to almost 125 properties in an area of approximately 26 acres near the intersections of Chapel and Howe Streets. The area is currently zoned as BA, RH‑2, and RM‑2 districts. Those residential and business zones do not allow the density of BD and BD‑1, which make up large parts of the downtown area.
BD‑1 is “one of our most dense and flexible zonings,” said Karyn Gilvarg, director of the City Plan Department. She raised concerns that the zone change might pose parking problems, as well as allow for unsuitable uses, like OTB.
McGrath said that the zone change would represent an extension of existing BD zoning that abuts the proposed area of change. “It’s not God’s law that we are not downtown,” he said.
As for the chance that a “nudie bar” or gun store might take advantage of the new zoning to set up shop, BD‑1 has been in place in the Ninth Square for years without such businesses opening, McGrath said.
“We don’t disagree” that BD‑1 allows undesirable uses, McGrath said. The answer is to change the zoning ordinance, not to prevent the zone change, he said.
Parking? Metered spots are sitting empty up and down Chapel West, McGrath said. Parking is not a problem, he said.
Poland (left).
Don Poland, a Hartford planner hired by the district, said BD‑1 is the right “fit” for the area and for what it wants to be. The new zoning would be, in many ways, more restrictive than the existing BA zoning, he said. What’s different is that BD doesn’t have side-yard requirements for buildings and it allows a greater FAR. Read a report he wrote here.
The area is currently an “underperforming neighborhood,” Poland said. New zoning would allow developers to make use of vacant lots, encouraging “new urbanist,” high-density, “smart growth,” he said.
Ed Mattison, chair of the commission, said the plan looks promising, but “the law of unintended consequences has not been repealed.” A new zone could lead to unwanted businesses.
Right now, you could have drive-in theaters, mini-golf courses, and “trampoline centers” in the existing BA zone, McGrath responded. Those would all be prohibited under BD‑1 zoning.
Schaffer.
Several local property owners spoke up in favor of the plan. Anthony Schaffer, president of C.A. White property management, said denser development would bring foot traffic into the area from downtown. “We’ve been left out of the fun of downtown.”
A powerful voice of opposition was present in the form of a letter from Abigail Rider, director of university properties at Yale. Read aloud by City Plan staff, the letter raised the use question again. Rider noted that things like “adult cabarets” and off-track betting could be permissible under BD‑1. Also heliports and passenger rail stations would be an option as of right, she wrote.
Further, nightclubs and other liquor-serving businesses could open without a special exception. “This means that the club zone could expand as of right up Crown Street into Chapel West, which we do not believe would be desirable,” Rider wrote.
Lastly, BD‑1 zoning would allow theaters and nightclubs — among other things — to open without meeting any parking requirements, which could quickly gobble up all available parking, Rider wrote. “We therefore urge you to delay action so that a proposal can be crafted that better serves property owners and residents in the District.”
McGrath offered to use district resources to work on drafting an amendment to BD‑1 zoning that addresses the university’s reservations.
He reiterated that parking will not be a problem under BD‑1 zoning. The parking requirements of the BA zone forces developers to use half their land for parking, he said. “It brings you things you don’t want. Hamden, for example.”
Commissioners voted to table the item.
“We’ll draft an amendment to downtown zoning,” McGrath said moments later, in the darkened atrium outside the meeting room.
Chapel West needs the zone change in order to attract developers and to ensure that the area develops in the “European-style,” not into Hamden. He said he’d like to see, for example, six-story residential buildings with two retail shops on the ground floor. That can’t happen now, he said. “You would have to have a huge parking lot,” and big side and rear yards. That would mean isolated buildings surrounded by yards and parking lots, rather than a dense urban environment or an extension of the downtown.
In other words, a Hamden, rather than a vibrant European city.