Allan Appel Photo
No sooner had Jim Turcio set out on a team walk-through of Fair Haven, than he noticed water pouring out from a building.
Turcio, New Haven’s building official, and other city inspectors and cops and health workers fanned out through Fair Haven Thursday on the second of a series of neighborhood “Clean and Safe Walk and Inspections” to identify quality ‑of-life problems and to get to work fixing them with the help of neighbors.
The team set out Thursday morning from left the police substation on Blatchley Avenue. That’s where Turcio up at the facade of the building across the way at the corner of Clay Street and noticed water pouring out of the scupper high on the facade.
He knocked on the door, got permission to enter the building and found problems on the third floor, where rain might be coming in as well as electrical concerns in the basement. Result: He’ll be writing to the owner to ask for a full inspection of the building, and soon.
Leaky scupper on side of 290 Blatchley.
Turcio led one group on the tour. Livable City Initiative Deputy Director Rafael Ramos led another group in a circumambulation around Clay, James, Market, Lloyd, Poplar, Lloyd, Castle, and Main streets.
The walk followed on the heels of a similar sweep — although officials prefer the less perjorative “walk-and-inspection” term — done last October in Newhallville. It involved city inspectors and officials led by Chief Administrative Officer Michael Carter, and included workers from the building, fire marshal, Livable City Initiative (LCI), parks, health, and engineering departments.
“Looks like there’s room for improvement,” Traffic and Parking’s Ray Willis says of Clay Street curb.
They made a two-and-a-half hour blitz of streets surveying buildings, yards, curbs, deployment of trash cans, checking if ongoing construction had proper permitting, and in general locating locating quality-of-life problems.
The aim of the tour was to fix immediate issues found pressing, then figure out a long-term strategy for turning such full-court deployments of city staff into permanently better coordinated anti-blight efforts citywide.
One of the teams heads out in the rain.
Alfredo Herrera, the Geographical Information System (GIS) analyst for the city. underscored the technological aim of the effort: He takes issues “captured” by the various departments — including the many that occurred on Wednesday’s tour — and those reported on the SeeClickFix platform, which the city uses, and “brings it more effectively into our work flow.” He designed a new app for all departments to access anytime they encounter a property, so they can find out what other departments have done there.
He created a map of all properties in the city, attached to them all the property information from residential licensing so that LCI inspectors in the field, when they’re called to a location, can call up all that info instantly.
“The big point of this exercise is to get the departments working together,” he reported as the tour kicked off.
Smith checks database.
Here are some stops along the way with what Herrera, Turcio, Fair Haven LCI specialist Laurie Lopez and others saw and entered into the city’s systems:
9:35: At 96 Clary St., Department of Public Works Inspector Honda Smith spotted a bulk trash violation. She checked the address on Vision Appraisal, couldn’t find it, and then checked another database.
“I’m going to issue a warning,” she saied. But within 15 minutes, she reported, “that trash is gone.” She physically located the owner of the building, and the items were removed, pending scheduled bulk pick up in the coming days.
9:50: We turned the corner on Clay, and at 250 James St., the group was struck by the old and unusual brick building that seems to have been erected around an old wooden house, still sticking out the rear. Fire Marshall Investigator Tim Borer noticed the bars on the windows. He crossds the street with Ramos and with Assistant Building Inspector Frank Bellonio.
Borer inspects the bars at 250 James.
Someone checked the database that Herrera has set up and determined 250 James is a single-family house. That’s out of the jurisdiction of the fire marshall, whose mandate is to inspect fire code enforcement for three-family homes. Still he was concerned because even single-family homes must be egress from every bedroom.
There are several codes involved here. Ramos planned to follow up with the owner.
10:00 a.m.At 36 Maltby, LCI Specialist Laurie Lopez spotted several cars without tags parked in a residential yard. You’re allowed to have one car on your property unregistered, without tags, but no more. “We’ll send a letter,” she said. “This is not earthshaking.”
Bombero spots a tree in need of TLC, or cutting down, while Fire Chief John Alston snaps up litter at the base.
10:20: At 260 Lloyd St., parks & rec & trees Director Becky Bombero spotted a tree that hasn’t leafed yet. She took a photograph. This might mean that it’s dead and will require removal. The photo and message will go to the department’s arborist, she said. Earlier, when she spotted an asphalted rectangle where a tree had once stood and been removed on Maltby Street, she asked the owner, “Would you be interested in a street tree?”
When the owner said yes, Bombero gave her a flyer and said there will be follow-up with the Urban Resources Initiative, which is partnering with the city to put in 10,000 trees. Bombero said she isn’t sure how many of the 10,000 have been planted, but a new one might be coming to Maltby as a result of the tour.
Monroe Street.
“She selects a species and agrees to provide 25 gallons of water a week,” Bombero said. We have 30,000 street trees in New Haven. “Our canopy is mature,” she added, so she is not surprised at some of the stark arboreal scenes along the tour route.
10:36: “Tell Honda about those tires,” Mike Carter called out as the crew turned onto Monroe Street and encountered an artisticly arranged pile of rubber.
“I swear they have babies,” replied Lopez. “Tires and mattresses, they are always cropping up.”
“What’s that movie?” Carter wondered aloud. “Gremlins,” came the response. “They just keep coming back.”
Unplated car with broken windows on Pine Street.
Around the next corner, on Pine Street, Carter spotted a white SUV with the tarp half blown off, revealing broken windows. “In Washington, D.C., I could tow this thing. It’s a hazard, a kid could climb in,” said Carter, who last worked for city government in the nation’s capital. Corporation Counsel John Rose said the cars become havens for rats.
Lopez knows the owner of the building on Pine. The vehicle likely belongs to one of her tenants. “I’ll call the owner,” she said. Lopez, who seemed to know everybody encounter on the tour, prefers to get things done with a kind of no-nonsense helpfulness with a touch of sweetness added as a first recourse; force only as a second alternative.
The De-Brief
Carter atop a root-caused sidewalk hazard that had been mitigated, pending tree inspection.
Back at the substation, the teams debriefed. Turcio said he’ll send out several letters to property owners including at 290 Blatchley for immediate inspection. Others from his department found only one construction site where work was being done without a permit. Borer and Bellonio found another on Clay Street.
Ramos said he and his staff flagged 24 property issues — trash, debris, or misuse of property, but nothing grievous/ He’ll be sending letters out to all two dozen.
Fire Marshall Borer, relatively new on the job, expressed gratitude for the networking. He says he’s going to move several items that he saw — bars on windows in that instance and some fire escapes questions higher on his list of priorities. With a recent change in state law, the city must now fire-inspect all three-family homes not once in three years, which had been the standard, but now every year. Borer and his department are trying to get up to speed. “Part of our effort is to focus on out of town landlords. Let’s share more data so we can take the next step,” he said.
Carter and Lopez at the Day One debrief.
City Engineer Giovanni Zinn reported a couple of catch basins in need of cleaning and he announces that speed humps will be coming to Bright Street and also calming measures to Wolcott as early as this summer. He, Department of Public Works Jeff Pescosolido and Traffic Chief Doug Hausladen were able to coordinate on Blatchley Avenue to hatch significant traffic-calming ideas for stretch of wide, elegant roadway.
Specifically, Zinn said the coordination, occasioned by the tour, will hopefully lead to a repaving of Blatchley from Clay to River that will turn it “from a wide street into a residential boulevard,” in the manner of the re-do recently on Clinton Avenue.
Carter reported that the upshot from last fall’s Newhallvile sweep included that area’s LCI specialist, Linda Davis, sending out 100 individual letters, with follow-up. Turcio said that of seven buildings that had been flagged in the Newhallville sweep, six are now in compliance, and he is working amicably with the seventh landlord to resolve issues. He also noted the new apps and maps that Herrera has created for use of LCI and the fire marshall’s office as having their impetus in the sweeps and tours.
The crew plans to commence a second day of the Fair Haven tour on Friday.
“This [coordination] is what I do every day,” Lopez concluded as the debriefing broke up and officials went back to their individual offices. “Working with every city department.” She said she thought Fair Haven was looking pretty good. “There isn’t a street I’d be ashamed to bring people to.”