Westville Manor Rebirth Plan Advances

The 1980s-era ​“barracks-like” buildings of Westville Manor are slated to be torn down and rebuilt as colorful two- and three-story townhouses surrounded by more green space, and better connected to neighboring West Rock streets.

City housing officials and a team of local architects, designers, and engineers pitched that vision of a safer, greener, less dense and more neighbor-friendly Westville Manor on Wednesday night to the City Plan Commission.

The commissioners unanimously signed off on the Housing Authority of New Haven’s proposed Planned Development District (PDD) designation for the 15-acre site on Wayfarer Street, thereby granting the public housing developers a key approval in their plans to demolish Westville Manor’s existing 26 two-story buildings and 150 residential units and replace them with 39 townhouses and one three-story apartment building containing 109 residential units. It would be the latest complex to undergo a complete modernization in a wave that has transformed public housing across New Haven, including several reborn developments right by Westville Manor in the West Rock neighborhood.

“I am for it,” current Westville Manor resident Pearl ​“Mz. Pearl” McKee said in support of the housing authority’s PDD application before the commissioners took their vote.

“It’s the best thing that will happen for the residents out there. This is gonna be a beautiful concept. It’s open. Wide open. Beautiful for the kids, and for the elders.”

The PDD application now goes to the Board of Alders for a final vote. The housing authority then plans to apply for state financing for the redevelopment project this November, and, pending receipt of that state aid, will begin demolition and construction on phase one of the two-phase project next spring.

Shenae Draughn is the senior vice president of the Glendower Group, the nonprofit development arm of the city’s housing authority. She described the proposed Westville Manor redevelopment as the latest and final project in a years along reinvestment in West Rock public housing that has seen major renovations to Brookside Estates, Twin Brook Properties (formerly Ribicoff Cottages), and Rockview.

“What you will see before you is a part of what has been a larger comprehensive plan of the West Rock neighborhood,” she said.

Local architect Kenneth Boroson walked the commissioners through the proposed design for the redeveloped Westville Manor, contrasting the smaller, more colorful proposed buildings with the early 1980s concrete-and-cinderblock, ​“barracks-like buildings with indefensible space and terrible topography and drainage” that exist at the complex today.

The redeveloped site will include 39 two and three-story townhouses and one three-story mixed-use resident services building. In all, the complex will have 109 apartments, down from the current total of 150 apartments. The replacement units will be built offsite at Rockview, Draughn said.

The new units will break down as follows: 20 one-bedroom units, 29 two-bedroom units, 32 three-bedroom units, 21 four-bedroom units, and seven five-bedroom units. Eighty-seven of those residential units will be in the new townhouses, and the remaining 22 will be in a central three-story apartment complex and resident services building.

The proposed project also includes a new stretch of road connecting Wayfarer Street to Wintergreen Avenue, as well as new new playgrounds, site lighting, landscaping, sidewalks, raingardens, and an outdoor education gathering space.

Boroson said the total design for the project was inspired by guiding principles defined by neighbors and city officials over the course of several design charettes held towards the end of last year. Some of those principles include improved safety and security, community support services, recreation for all ages, homes with a variety of amenities and types.

Hartford-based landscape architect Heidi Hajna explained the details of the bespoke zoning regulations that make up the proposed PDD.

“This allows us the flexibility to create a neighborhood we can be very proud to live and access,” she said.

The site currently sits on two lots in a RM‑1 low-middle density residential zone. The proposed PDD would create five separate lots on the 15-acre site and adjust various building and yard size requirements to allow for more open space and clearer distinctions between public and private realms.

Some of those proposed zoning changes include 2,419 minimum lot area per dwelling unit where 3,500 square feet is permitted, 29,079 square-foot minimum lot area where 6,000 square feet is permitted, and three-foot front yard minimums where 20 feet is permitted.

“We’re actually going considerably closer here so that we create the eyes on the street that we’re looking for in this community,” Hajna said, ​“putting the buildings right up to the street.”

Every townhouse will have a front porch, Boroson said, as well as both a front entry and a rear entry. The site will have a total of 91 surface parking spaces.

Montreal Johnson-Godley, president of Westville Manor’s Tenant Resident Council (TRC), praised the housing authority and the local designers and engineers for spending time with the community and listening to what people who actually live at the complex wanted to see in a redeveloped site.

“These people came in and introduced something beautiful to us and we really really appreciate it,” she said. ​“If things go well, then we can move this along so we can have a better place to live in the city of New Haven.”

Every commissioner spoke up in praise of the proposed redevelopment before casting a vote in support.

Commission Chair Ed Mattison said that, every time he drives by the west side complex, he marvels at just how ​“unplanned, un-thought through, and unbeautiful” it is.

“This seems just astonishingly better,” he said.

51 Apartments Planned For Former West Rock Nursing Home

Wednesday night’s meeting also saw commissioners sign off on the site plan for a proposed 51-unit apartment complex at the vacant former West Rock Nursing Home site at 34 Level St., right across the street from Westville Manor.

Local attorney Caleb Hamel, representing landlord Eyal Preis, who owns the holding company 34 Level BSD LLC that owns the property, said that the proposed development will convert the long vacant one-story building into a mix of studio, two-bedroom, and three-bedroom units. The complex will also have 50 bike racks and 97 on-site parking spaces.

Last year Preis applied for and received City Plan Commission approval to build a total of 74 apartments at the six-acre site: 27 units in the existing former nurshing home building, and another 47 in eight new two-story buildings.