Jane Comins Photo
At Kensington Playground.
A proposal is making the rounds of New Haven neighborhood meetings. Its pitch: The Board of Parks Commissioners should never give up the only public park in a neighborhood, and it should always ensure each neighborhood has at least one playground with a playscape and a splash pad or water element.
Pat Wallace, representing the Friends of Kensington Playground, sought support for the proposed city policy at the most recent monthly meeting of the Fair Haven Community Management Team, held this past Thursday evening over Zoom.
Wallace asked the 40 members present to approve that proposal and send a letter so saying to the parks commission, the mayor, and the Board of Alders.
The CMT members are voting online, with a deadline for this coming Thursday. The Westville/West Hills CMT voted to support the proposal after a similar pitch last month.
“All neighborhoods do have at least one playground, and Dwight is about to lose our only one,” Wallace told the Fair Haven gathering.
The request comes on the heels of a partial legal setback in her group’s ongoing effort to prevent the city from selling the 0.67-acre park on Kensington Street for $1 to The Community Builders (TCB). The Boston-based developer plans to build 15 new affordable apartments atop the public greenspace as part of TCB’s $30 million Phase 2 redevelopment of the adjacent Kensington Square apartment complex.
The city in turn has agreed to set aside new public parkland in Newhallville, while TCB promises to invest $80,000 in improvements at the nearby city-owned Day Street Park.
The case remains ongoing in state Superior Court. Click here for another story on the legal conundrum — over whether can a city “take” from itself — in the case.
Emily Hays Photo
Patricia Wallace: Pitching community management teams.
Wallace said she was at the Fair Haven gathering not to request specific support for the Kensington Playground lawsuit against the city, but rather to ask support for the larger citywide policy change.
“We say this is a fundamental amenity the city should be providing in every neighborhood. Shouldn’t every kid in the city and every family be able to walk to a playground?: she asked.
“This is meant to provide a baseline of services for families of kids in every neighborhood. We’re not asking you to comment on Kensington.”
A sympathetic, though not uncritical, discussion followed.
“I would support it,” said Mary Wade Home CEO David Hunter, if the policy requires that the city budget money to carry it out. The city “is currently not maintaining parks they have, he noted.
CMT Co-Chair Lee Cruz, who was helming the gathering, said that the parks department staff, which is down to one third of the number it employed in the 1980s, could potentially be the beneficiary of an infusion from some of the $94 million of the federal Covid relief money coming to the city.
Neighbor Sally Esposito, pointing to the splash pad at Dover Beach park that was underwritten by the housing authority, raised a “reservation”: “What if there are other resources in the community to support these things? At this point I wouldn’t vote for it because that might be hard to achieve.”
“We’re not suggesting an expenditure of funds to create new parks,” Wallace responded. “That’s not really the point … My understanding at Kensington is the splash pad [funding] was raised by the neighbors. I expect if we’re successful, we’ll have to raise money for the Kensington playscape.
” We appreciate the city is squeezed financially. This is really about a different matter of policy, pure and simple. This is not to cost the city a dime.”
A Google forms vote among eligible members of the FHCMT was organized online during the meeting but was not conclusive by meeting’s end, and no results were announced.
Wallace said she hopes the proposal will be on the agenda of the Parks Commission for this month’s meeting.
The Westville/West Hills CMT has already endorsed the proposal, she reported, and she hopes endorsements from Fair Haven and other CMTs, by the time of the commissioners’ gathering, “will add weight to the proposal.”