by Laura Glesby The New Haven independent
Alders voted this week to recommend approval of the city’s new non-binding blueprint for what New Haven should look like a decade from now.
That document — dubbed “Vision 2034” — includes recommendations around everything from scrapping parking minimums to expanding local compost systems to boosting city supports for people with disabilities.
The roadmap for New Haven’s city planning efforts is now awaiting guidance from the state’s Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP), before a final public hearing, review, and vote by the City Plan Commission.
The “Vision 2034” plan is the product of two years of community input and sets forward an array of housing, transit, economic, infrastructure, environmental, and cultural goals for the city. It fulfills a state requirement that municipalities produce a comprehensive plan once every decade.
While the plan has been stewarded by the City Plan Department, it offers policy guides for a variety of city agencies, including designating an Americans with Disabilities Act liaison in every city department. It also calls for reducing parking minimums for housing creation, completing Union Station’s transition to geothermal energy, supporting new residential developments of fewer than ten units, and making the city’s waterways more kayak-able.
“We support the approval of this Vision 2034,” said Hill Alder Carmen Rodriguez at the Board of Alders’ full board meeting on Monday evening. Rodriguez, who chairs the alders’ Community Development Committee, described the plan as “both a vision of the future and a guide for how to reach that vision.”
“I commend the city staff, community engagement team, and the residents for all their input in this process,” added Westville Alder Adam Marchand, who also serves on the City Plan Commission.
Alders gave a unanimous vote of support for the plan at Monday’s meeting.
According to City Plan Director Laura Brown, the plan has also received a favorable recommendation from the Southern Connecticut Regional Council of Governments (SCRCOG) and is awaiting the results of a review from DEEP.
Once DEEP’s feedback is received, Brown said, the City Plan Commission will hold one last public hearing on the comprehensive plan, before taking a final vote on whether the city can adopt the document.
Brown said she expects that public hearing to take place on Oct. 15.
“It’s a very good sign that the Board of Alders gave it a positive recommendation,” Brown said. “We’ve done quite a lot of outreach to ensure that the public had an opportunity to comment and provide input.”
The alders’ vote of approval coincided with the national YIMBYtown conference, hosted this year in New Haven. At that conference, housing advocates broadly called for deregulation of development to make it easier for more housing units to be built, in context of a shortage of housing (and particularly, affordable housing).
The draft of Vision 2034 includes some recommendations to that effect. It calls for a “comprehensive zoning overhaul… with an emphasis on lowering barriers to housing creation,” including amendments to “parking, lot size, density, setback, building coverage, building height, and floor-area-ratio standards to better support housing development.” It specifically recommends that the city eliminate parking minimums for residential developments and reduce zoning restrictions on accessory dwelling units.
Still, Brown said that the draft of Vision 2034 is not exclusively a “build, build, build” document.
“I think what I heard from residents of the city is that we want a balanced approach that really accounts for the thoughts and opinions that already live here, in addition to those that are coming,” Brown said.
Read the full draft under review here, and stay tuned for a City Plan Commission Hearing to be posted on this website.