Epimoni
Renderings for Fair St.
When the easternmost block of Fair Street reopens as a public thoroughfare after 60 years, it will not be a new edition of Court Street with cute benches and shops.
Think rather of a dark alley serving as a driveway for another looming massive private development whose pricey market-rate rents will do little to address affordable housing needs.
One alder, at least, portrayed the planned reopening of that street. Another praised it for bringing back to life a dead street, with the potential to connect Wooster Square to the train station and the Hill.
A slew of Wooster Square neighbors registered opposition to approve the planned street reopening for now. While the Greater New Haven Chamber of Commerce said, in effect, All aboard!
Those takes were offered Tuesday night during Zoom-held hearing of the Board of Zoning Appeals (BZA) meeting.
The hearing concerned plans by New York-based Darren Seid and his company Epimoni for a new 186-unit apartment building and Fair Street “greenway” next door to a 299-unit apartment complex they’re currently constructing atop a former industrial lot at 44 Olive St./87 Union Street.
No vote was taken on the slew of variances required and the planned development unit (PDU) requested for the new project. The proposal first heads to City Plan for site plan review before returning to the zoning board for a vote.
Tuesday night’s hearing was a preview, like a previous community gathering last month, of the more detailed clash of development visions come.
Click here for more details of the proposed seven-story structure, with set-back and terraces, and the Fair Street “greenway.”
Thomas Breen file photo
Builder Seid: Renters will say, “You have to look at Wooster Square.”
“We want to complement what we are doing at 44 Olive,” architect Walter Ploskon said at Tuesday’s hearing. “We wanted to create a street like your Court, walkable, drivable, bikeable, with bollards, buffers, street trees, connectivity at multiple levels. We propose a one-way from Olive heading west, tabled, with textured pattern; then toward Union two-way” for the new building’s entry and exit. :
Much of the lengthy discussion focused on the greenway, which the presenters called the “centerpiece of the development.”
Attorney Gregory Muccilli, representing Epimoni, said the development’s owners, not the city, would take responsibility in perpetuity for the maintenance of the reconfigured and reconceived street and its public amenities.
During the public portion of the hearing substantial skepticism was expressed.
New Haven Urban Design League President Anstress Farwell charged that the plan, as presented, would involve “basically turning what’s left of a private street into a driveway into a private garage.”
Other neighbors associated with the Downtown/Wooster Square Community Management Team (DWSCMT), with whom the developers had a sparsely attended meeting in June, questioned how the street might relieve the vehicular congestion and the challenging parking situation with so many new dwellings and their inhabitants suddenly landing in the area. They called for a traffic study as part of the request for PDU approval.
“It’s already incredibly congested,” said the team’s chair, Ian Dunn. “On the height of the building, that Fair Street corridor will not be welcoming. It’ll be cave-like, two tall buildings with a narrow street in between,” a plan that will not help an overly burdened neighborhood, he concluded.
Planned Fair Street greenway.
There were supporters in attendance as well. Chamber of Commerce President Garret Sheehan Zoomed in his support, as did Hill Alder Carmen Rodriguez (in whose ward the project formally lies).
Rodriguez praised developer Seid’s spirit of reaching out and coordinating with the community (which had been questioned by Wooster Square Alder Ellen Cupo in connection with issues associated with the 44 Olive project). Rodriguez praised in particular the walkable space component of the vision for Fair Street.
Ploskon said he acknowledges that a traffic study will be required along with a “shade study,”
“We know the design of the greenway is evolving,“he said.
Seid committed to coming to the area CMTs as his group makes its appearance in the next months at City Plan for site plan review.
“We’re going to be here on many occasions. I want to come to the Hill, to Downtown/Wooster Square. We’re so excite,” he said.
“A hundred years from now when we’re all gone, that greenway, that easement [will be] maintained in perpetuity.”