Paul Bass Photo
Happier days: The 2015 announcement of the Escape project.
Mayor Toni Harp has put on hold long-delayed plans to construct a youth center and overnight shelter for teens on Orchard Street.
Harp updated her plans for the center — called The Escape — during her latest appearance on WNHH FM’s “Mayor Monday” program.
Back in 2015 Harp announced plans for the city to build out the drop-in center at 654 Orchard St., a former community outreach center owned by Bethel AME Church. It would include after-school homework help, athletics, music activities, and 15 beds for homeless young men between the ages of 17 and 24.
The plans almost immediately became mired in repeat delays. It became a source of tension with the Board of Alders last year when Harp included money for it in her proposed annual city operating budget.
Harp did not include money for the Escape in her proposed budget for the coming fiscal year. She said Monday that the project doesn’t need more money. But it does need new attention to unanticipated structural problems. And it needs a sign off from the Board of Alders.
“We put it on hold,” Harp said. “I stopped it because I really felt it should be in the hands of our CAO [chief administrative officer] and our city engineer.” Last year Harp shifted responsibility for the project away from her youth services division to those two appointees.
If it goes forward at all. “We are at the position of negotiating with the Board of Alders” about whether it makes sense to continue pursuing the plan, Harp said.
Unanticipated problems have included needed roof repairs. Click here to read a story about last year’s debate over the unanticipated problems.
Beaver Hills Alder Jill Marks, whose ward includes the Escape site, said she still supports the overall concept.
“That would be a great asset for the community. That’s something we need,” she said Tuesday, holding out hope the project can move forward.
Also on “Mayor Monday”:
• Harp said the city is hoping that the creation of “opportunity zones” will help lure developers to build out the newly approved plan for Long Wharf. Long Wharf is within one of the zones created nationwide to offer investors federal capital gains tax breaks to create jobs in economically distressed areas.
• A listener asked Harp about this article last week in the New Haven Register about parking ticket scofflaws owing the city $13.8 million. She said the city is asking the state legislature to change a law to help collect parking tickets, but prohibiting people from obtaining or renewing their driver’s licenses if they have two unpaid tickets. The current law sets the limit at 5, she said.
Click on the video below to watch the full episode of “Mayor Monday” on WNHH FM:
WNHH’s “Mayor Monday” is made possible with the support of Gateway Community College and Berchem Moses P.C.