Where Will 1,000 People Park?

Dwight neighbors revved up concerns about increased parking and traffic from Yale New Haven Hospital’s planned new neuroscience center and renovated Saint Raphael Campus — while a hospital spokesperson pointed out that the many new patients, doctors, staff, and visitors for the nearly $1 billion project will have to park somewhere.

Neighborhood historic preservationist Olivia Martson led the charge against the hospital’s proposed parking plan Tuesday night during the regular monthly meeting of the Dwight Community Management Team in the Amistad Middle School gymnasium on Edgewood Avenue.

That parking plan is to support the prospective new $838 million neuroscience center and St. Raphael campus renovation that YNHH is looking to build out over the next five years on the blocks bounded by Chapel Street, Sherman Avenue, George Street, and Orchard Street.

The hospital recently received recommended approvals related to the project from the City Plan Commission.

In three 4 – 1 votes, commissioners voted to pass along a favorable report to the Board of Alders for a proposed amendment to the Medical Area Overall Parking Plan (MAOPP), a proposed amendment to the city ordinance text and maps that describe the St. Raphael campus’s Planned Development District (PDD), and a proposed license agreement for the construction of a new pedestrian bridge over Orchard Street.

Holding up a 2008 map of New Haven speckled red and yellow with all of the city’s existing surface and garage parking sites, Martson urged the roughly 20 neighbors who showed up Tuesday night to go to City Hall on Dec. 10.

That’s when the Board of Alders Legislation Committee will be holding public hearings on the neuroscience center parking plan.

She called on neighbors to testify about how the hospital’s planned new parking garage at Chapel Street and Orchard Street and its planned expansion of the nearby Orchard Street Garage will affect Dwight and West River.

YNHH Senior Vice President Vin Petrini shared a design rendering of the proposed new garage with the Independent for this article (pictured above).

While hospital execs did not share this picture at last month’s City Plan Commission hearing, YNHH Senior Vice President Operations Michael Holmes did estimate that the new research center and medical facilities will increase the campus’s current parking demand by roughly 1,000 spaces.

“It’s going to be this massive wall that goes from Chapel all the way to George Street,” Dwight neighbor Kate Walton said about the planned and existing parking garages on Orchard. ​“It’s like putting a giant factory in the neighborhood.”

“We don’t want it to impact the neighborhood so much that no one will live here,” added Martson. ​“We have to come up with a plan so that our neighborhood grows in a responsible way. I don’t want to see us become just a place where people drive in and drive out.”

YNHH Program Coordinator Andy Orefice said that the hospital needs to build a new garage and expand the existing garage on Orchard Street to accommodate the many new patients, doctors, hospital staff, and visitors who will be coming to the new neuroscience center and hospital campus.

The hospital currently leases parking spaces at various city-owned surface lots in the area, he said. But several of the larger lots, including the former Coliseum site and the Sherman/Tyler lots, are likely to be scooped up by developers in the not-too-distant future.

He said YNHH already does a lot to encourage staff to use alternative forms of transportation. The hospital subsidizes bus passes and train tickets for its employees and runs a free shuttle service, including to park-and-ride pick-up spots in surrounding suburbs.

“We’re trying,” he said.

But it still needs to provide some kind of parking, especially considering the scope of the project.

“There will be no egress or ingress on Orchard Street” for the new planned garage, he said, to reduce the car flow on that already congested block.

Martson, Walton, and several other neighbors Tuesday remained unconvinced.

The neighborhood already has large parking garages on Orchard Street and at the southwestern corner of George and Orchard, let alone the planned new 763-space garage for nearby Legion Avenue.

“Do we need a new 1,000-car garage?” she asked. How might the air pollution caused by the many new cars coming to the block affect students at nearby Amistad Middle School or Career High School?

“We only have one shot at this,” she said, ​“and that’s gonna be it.”

The hospital should instead consider investing in housing for the area, she said, and not in building new garages. ​“I know that might be a real dream,” she added, but it’s worth adding to the mix.

If the hospital doesn’t build these new garages, asked neighbor Richard Crouse, where will these new cars go?

“I don’t have the answer,” Martson admitted, but hopefully there is some alternative to just building more and more garages.

“We need the science building,” said management team Chair Florita Gillespie (pictured). ​“And we need to live here, in a safe, healthy community. We don’t want all this pollution. So what are we gonna do about it?”

She didn’t have an answer either Tuesday night. She also called on neighbors to go to City Hall on Dec. 10 and to keep working with the alders, the city, and the hospital to come up with the best solution for all parties.