Dwight Looks To The Present, Plans For The Future

by Abiba Biao The New Haven independent

Dwight Community Management Team member Kate Walton and Yale MBA candidate Amanda Almeida.

Edgewood Alder Evette Hamilton at the youth and seniors table.

Concerned with street litter and improving residential recycling efforts, Kate Walton — a Dwight resident for 47 years — said she’s noticed wrappers and packaging from fast food chains like McDonald’s, Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts around the neighborhood. She pointed out that all of that waste is not biodegradable.

“When they do go around doing street cleaning, to me, there should be a vehicle that goes around and does a sample of what is being picked up off the streets,” she said, with the goal to fine businesses that are not engaging in sustainable practices and residents who improperly dispose of trash and contaminate recycling bins

Pen in hand, Amanda Almeida nodded, carefully jotting Walton’s ideas on a yellow sticky note.

That interaction played out on Saturday at 130 Edgewood Ave. as Amistad Academy’s community room and gymnasium turned into a place of reflection as Yalies, Dwight community members, and residents gathered to discuss urban design and envision the future of the neighborhood.

The meeting was held by the Dwight Central Management Team and the Greater Dwight Development Corporation (GDDC), with support from the Yale Urban Design Workshop. Also in attendance were the New Haven Firebirds, the New Haven Fire Department, the New Haven Police Department, Dwight Alder Frank Douglass and former East Rock/Downtown Alder Eli Sabin.

The meeting, which ran from 9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m., focused on four areas of development: community wellbeing; housing and affordability; education, youth and seniors; and economic development and jobs. Each topic had its own table and participants were free to go around and visit different sections.

The feedback gathered at the meeting will be used to help create a Greater Dwight Neighborhood Plan for 2034, covering the Dwight, Edgewood, and West River neighborhoods. 

Natasha Zimmermann (center) at the community wellbeing table.

Sitting at the community and wellbeing table was Natasha Zimmermann, a second year Masters in Public Health student in the Yale School of Public Health Department of Environmental Health Sciences.

As attendees sat down beside her, Zimmermann briefed them on the results of the Dwight Urban Heat Study. A research assistant for the study, Zimmermann helped with the analysis of study data and is now disseminating information of the results to residents. Part of this effort is dispersing physical copies, adding that she has brought handouts to the YCMA, Edge of the Woods, and local places of worship. She said that the resource is also available online and is listed on the Yale Center on Climate Change and Health, the Community Alliance for Research and Engagement (CARE), and other platforms.

The study — conducted by the Yale Center on Climate Change and Health, the Yale Urban Design Workshop, and CARE — explored how Dwight residents were affected by heat. It also explored community-oriented cooling solutions. The methodology consisted of five focus groups with 36 total participants and a survey, which received 270 respondents.

Some significant results Zimmermann highlighted were that more than 75 percent of survey participants viewed extreme heat as an important issue. There are no cooling centers in Dwight; 68 percent of participants said that they would be interested in using a neighborhood cooling center if created.

“Other solutions that folks were interested in seeing were more trees and gardens and parks, a community swimming pool, shaded bus stops, financial support to help purchase [cooling methods] like air conditioning and support for energy bills,” she said.

As a Yale student, Zimmermann said that this type of research has made her more attuned to community matters.

“I think it’s been really meaningful to be here and get to see, kind of, the longitudinal care that folks here have for the neighborhood, and getting to be part of that is really special because I think it’s an active choice to be involved in a community when you’re a student,” she said. “So I think that getting to hear about the care that people have with their neighborhood and kind of the way that the community has come together, has been so special.”

Like Walton, Dwight resident Dottie Green paid a stop to the economic development and jobs table on Saturday. A retired educator, Green taught middle school in South Carolina before becoming an education administrator in the Connecticut Department of Correction. She has called Dwight home since 1988.

When asked what neighborhood problems she’s observed, public infrastructure was the first to come to mind.

“Potholes everywhere,” she said with a laugh, alongside lack of sidewalk maintenance, “commercial landlords not taking care of their property,” and too many smoke shops. Other issues she’s interested in are affordable housing and greenspace equity, using Edgewood Park as an example. In the future, she hopes that Dwight residents use the park in “large scale ways,” such as hosting summer festivals and using the waterways.

“For years and years, people didn’t feel like they could engage in Edgewood Park. They felt like there was a divide,” she said, before pausing. “I want to say we’re psychologically redlined from Edgewood park… I’d like to see people utilize Edgewood Park in large scale ways.”

Despite these problems, there’s a reason she’s stayed in Dwight, highlighting community engagement and activism.

“What I love about this community is the connectedness of the management team,” she said. “The GDDC are major assets to this community because I think they truly advocate for the needs of the community.”

Edgewood Alder Evette Hamilton still remembers the days the neighborhood struggled as a food desert. Neighborhood advocacy resulted in Stop and Shop coming to Dwight Place Shopping Plaza in 2011.

“I am proud of the work that we’ve done, not only myself, but a whole team of us have done to compile all the data to hear from our community, what they would like to see happen. and the changes they would like to see happen here in our community,” she said.

To compile the data presented at the meeting was a yearlong endeavor, Hamilton explained, done through doorknocking, in-person conversations, and getting feedback from residents at community cleanups and events like the annual Edgewood Youth Day Block Party, which she said had almost 300 people in attendance.

“We’ve gone through all the different avenues to be able to reach to people, right? And in doing so, all the data that you see on the wall is what folks have said, what they want to see happen.”

After hearing about Saturday’s charrette, Mahdere Yared knew it would be a great opportunity to “learn more about what’s happing in the community.” Yared is a new resident of Dwight and has been living in the neighborhood since graduating with her bachelor’s degree in cognitive science from Yale last year.

“I like being close to the playground and environment in the community,” she said. “And so, I want to keep on being involved with community networks and tapping in.”

While stopping by the youth and seniors table, she brought up the idea of having a dedicated “poetry space” in the community, mentioning the open mic and poetry slams held by New Haven poet and housing activist Sun Queen.

“I just like trying to always be around other creatives and I hope that — honestly, I might come back and tell them [the youth and seniors table] — I hope it’s, like, intergenerational,” she said, before entering the growing line to get lunch. “Sun’s space is intergenerational. It’s just, like, cool to have people saying stuff at different stages of their life, and being vulnerable, and I think it’s a cool way to connect.”

Zimmermann and Yared in line for food.

Sticky notes with feedback taken from community members on business development and entrepreneurship.

Sticky notes with feedback taken from community members on business development and entrepreneurship.