Hamden Weighs Where To Grow, & How

Bus routes that connect people to school or to town hall. Hiking trails created near affordable housing in the southern part of town. Stores, ​“calmer” streets, close-to campus housing in a new ​“university district” in the north. Plus new sewers.

Two Hamden elected officials floated those ideas as the town dives into a once-in-a-decade look into how to adapt to changing times.

The two officials, Legislative Council members Justin Farmer and Lauren Garrett, offered those and other ideas during a 2019 preview discussion on WNHH FM’s ​“Dateline” program.

Farmer and Garrett have just finished their first year on the council, Farmer from the Highwood neighborhood near the southern border with New Haven, Garrett from West Woods near the town’s northern border with Cheshire. They offered a fresh perspective on longtime town challenges just as Hamden is beginning a comprehensive rethinking of its Plan of Conservation and Development (POCD). The town has contracted with the firm of Planimetrics to help guide the community through the process, which will reexamine Hamden’s economic, physical, and social development goals.

The once-a-decade POCD update occurs as Hamden continues gaining population and as its population continues to diversify. The town had 60,960 residents in 2010, according to the U.S. Census. The population is expected to grow to between 61,274 and 62,545 in 2020 — depending on whether you believe projections prepared by Planimetrics or by the Connecticut State Data Center. Those projections rise to 64,927 (Planimetrics) or 70,408 (State Data Center) by 2040. The town’s nonwihite population, which stood at about 32 percent back in 2010, has also been growing.

“Hamden is going through a major transition,” Farmer observed. ​“It will probably be a city more than a town, [with] predominantly people of color.”

“The big challenge is making everybody happy” while tackling challenges like the need for more affordable housing and updated infrastructure amid tight fiscal times, said Garrett.

For instance: The town needs more affordable housing. Where should it go?

On the one hand, it’s already concentrated in the southern, and more heavily African-American and lower-income, part of town, Farmer noted. On the other hand, it’s important to build it nearest to transit lines.

The northern end of town also needs more housing for Quinnipiac University students, Garrett noted. Off-campus students have sometimes caused problems for neighbors with loud parties; Garrett said in her case, the Quinnipiac students living two doors from her ​“have been very nice. They’re good kids.” In any case, it makes sense to have more student apartments located nearer to the campus, for the convenience of the students, she suggested, envisioning the development of a ​“Quinnipiac zone” on which the town and university would partner.

Farmer noted that some QU students live as far away as Putnam Avenue, where 10 students living in housing meant for five occupants can cause parking and traffic problems.

Garrett also argued for working with the state Department of Transportation (DOT) to put in more traffic lights and generally slow traffic down on state-owned Whitney Avenue. Both she and Farmer agreed with a listener to the show, Helen Ward, who posted a Facebook question about the possibilities of working with the incoming administration of Gov. Ned Lamont on improving the state road.

“We’ve got to get the DOT on board,” Garrett said.

Speaking of the DOT, its bus routes need updating in town, Farmer noted, echoing a long-held complaint in New Haven about schedules and maps that no longer conform to where most people live and work (and when they need to travel). He said it takes him an hour and half to travel five miles from his home to Town Hall because of the screwy routes. He and Garrett also noted that parents have no public transit options to reach the Wintergreen School building, where public school classes will be moving under a system-wide redistricting plan.

A big issue facing the northern part of town is the absence of sewers. That makes it hard to attract new businesses and expand the tax base, for instance. Garrett recommended exploring tax-increment financing (TIFs) as one possible way to finance installing them. (Read about some of the pros and cons of that approach here.)

Powder Farm’s Promise

In southern Hamden, the town should also look at alternative sources of money to pay for millions of dollars of improvements to Powder Farm, Farmer argued. He said that’d be a way to preserve needed open space and enhance new housing being built nearby. He envisioned new hiking trails and a canoe launch in the park. ​“We don’t have the money” to finance the improvements through the town, but he argued that Hamden can make the case to state or other funders to support ​“a regional gem.”

Powder Farm is 102 acres (!) of forest, lakes, and wetlands off Putnam Avenue a quarter-mile east of Dixwell Avenue. (See map.) The Olin Corporation once tested munitions there as part of its rifle operations operations during WWII, so in plain terms it’s kind of a toxic waste dump complete with bunkers that once stored gunpowder, but one that has been unused for long enough that it’s apparently safe enough to hike around back there. It’s closed to the public, but the Hamden Land Conservation Trust has every once in a while been given permission to lead hikes there.

Garrett’s and Farmer’s ideas echo those the town has begun hearing in ​“listening sessions” on the POCD update, according to Town Planner Dan Kops.

Kops said Wednesday that the town is paying $75,000 to Planimetrics for help with the POCD process. (A Boston-based marketing and financial anlysis firm called Camoin Associates is assisting Planimetrics.) The town has allocated another $10,000 for phone surveys of residents. One such survey checked in with 100 households; an upcoming one will hit 300 households. (Click here to learn more about the POCD process.)

The state mandates that all cities and towns update their POCDs each decade, and that the updates conform with state and regional versions. The state can withhold discretionary grants to towns that fail to complete the updates. Hamden’s must be submitted to the state Office of Policy and Management by Sept. 22; Hamden’s Planning and Zoning Commission is scheduled to sift through the first round of citizen suggestions at its Jan. 22 meeting.

Click on the play arrow to watch the full episode of WNHH FM’s ​“Dateline New Haven” with Hamden Council members Lauren Garrett and Justin Farmer, including a discussion of how bizarre state guidelines could declare a school with the ultimate diversity (Sheperd Glen, roughly one-quarter white, one-quarter African-American, one-quarter Latinx, one-quarter Asian-American) so racially segregated that it needs to close.