Markeshia Ricks photo
LCI’s Jeff Moreno at neglected government-owned Rosette Street lot.
One way to address the city’s affordable housing crisis: Look no further than that empty lot next door.
A lawyer working with a citizens’ group addressing that crisis is making that pitch.
Legal Aid Attorney Liam Brennan made that pitch at the tail end of the regular monthly meeting of the Downtown-Wooster Square Community Management Team (DWSCMT) on the second floor of City Hall.
He argued that the city should adjust its 1960s-era zoning regulations to make it legal to build residences on lots currently deemed too small to hold a home.
“This is driving up the cost of housing and making it hard to replace housing when it disappears,” Brennan said about the city’s minimum lot area requirements. “It requires a serious examination and overhaul of the zoning code.”
Thomas Breen photo
Legal Aid Attorney Liam Brennan on Tuesday night.
Brennan is working with an affordable housing advocacy group called the Room for All Coalition, which consists of the New Haven Legal Assistance Association (NHLAA), Mothers & Others for Justice, the Connecticut Bail Fund’s Housing Not Jails initiative, the Dixwell & Newhallville Watchdog & Advocacy Committee, New Haven Rising, and Neighborhood Housing Services of New Haven.
Last month, the group of community activists held a press conference outside City Hall where they demanded that the city’s Affordable Housing Task Force be transparent, inclusive, and action-oriented.
As the task force prepares to make a formal recommendation to the Board of Alders by the end of the year as to what the city can do to help low- and middle-income residents afford to live in New Haven at a time when there is a construction boom in mostly market-rate apartments, Brennan and the Room for All Coalition are putting together their own list of recommendations to pass along to the task force before Nov. 30. That’s the last day that the take force will be accepting recommendation submissions from the public.
The Downtown-Wooster Square Community Management Team members who stuck around to talk affordable housing.
At Tuesday night’s management team meeting, Brennan said that the Room for All Coalition is working on recommendations related to building new affordable housing, preserving existing affordable housing, and addressing homelessness in the city.
In that first bucket, he said, the group is pushing for mandatory inclusionary zoning, which would require private developers to set aside a certain percentage of new units at affordable rental rates; for permitting accessory dwelling units, which would allow homeowners to convert attics and basements and backyard accessory structures into legal housing; and for repurposing empty and abandoned lots, which would require some key changes to the city’s zoning code.
Brennan said that when he canvasses neighborhoods like Newhallville and the Hill on issues of affordable housing, he always hears the same question: “What’s happening with the empty lots?”
“If you really pay attention when you’re driving through any of these neighborhoods,” he said, “you will see empty lot after empty lot after empty lot.”
Many of these vacant lots, he said, are even owned by the city. For years the city’s neighborhood development and anti-blight agency, the Livable City Initiative (LCI), has weighed promoting the development of mini-houses on some of those lots; others have become cherished community gardens.
Minimum lot requirements in the city’s zoning code, Brennan said, are currently standing in the way of residents and developers building homes on these lots.
“Even in the most densely zoned residential districts,” he said, “there is a minimum property requirement of 0.12 acres.” According to the city’s zoning code, RH‑2 General High Density Districts require a minimum lot area of 5,400 square feet for single-family homes. That’s a requirement of roughly 0.12 acres.
Brennan held up a picture of a stately two-and-a-half-story house on Edgewood Avenue that was built before zoning regulations were adopted in 1925. The property sits on 0.11 acres, he said.
“It would be illegal to build this house today,” he said, “because, according to our zoning code, this property is too small.”
Sade and Donny at an affordable housing protest outside City Hall in October.
He held up another picture, of an empty city-owned lot at 66 Liberty St. in the Hill. The lot is only 0.06 acres, he said, and therefore legally too small to house a home. But just down the block, a perfectly fine home that predates zoning sits on just 0.05 acres.
“In fairness,” said Wooster Square resident Cordalie Benoit, “the zoning code of the City of New Haven is a minefield. And it’s never been totally, systematically done. It’s a joke.”
Financial Review and Audit Commission (FRAC) Chair Mohit Agrawal asked if any of the city’s minimum lot size requirements are dictated by state law.
“Totally local,” Benoit replied. “They’re totally local.”
New Haven Urban Design League President Anstress Farwell praised the City of Hartford for overhauling its zoning code a few years ago. But, she cautioned, this type of comprehensive zoning redo cost Hartford half a million dollars, and would require quite a bit of time and financial investment on behalf of the city.
“It can be done,” Brennan said about changing the city’s zoning code to accommodate new affordable housing, “if we’re up for doing hard things.”