by Mona Mahadevan The New Haven independent
Nearly a year after the Elicker administration first proposed upgrades to the Green, City Engineer Giovanni Zinn stopped by a meeting of the Historic District Commission (HDC) to talk through continued efforts to bring a food kiosk, a 24/7 public bathroom, multiple new plazas, and various traffic-calming measures to New Haven’s central greenspace.
Zinn solicited feedback on those plans during the HDC’s most recent meeting last Wednesday at City Hall.
The mock-up he presented was the same as the one shown to the Board of Alders over the summer.
While the Green is a public space, it’s privately owned by a self-perpetuating group of five proprietors, formally known as the Committee of the Proprietors of the Common and Undivided Lands in New Haven. The city is working with the quintet on the project, as well as Yale, the Board of Alders, and the three churches on the Green. According to Zinn, the proprietors must approve any changes made to the Green.
In September, the city received $4 million in federal funding to improve the Green’s adjacent streets. Zinn wrote in the application that the money would be used to install eight raised tables and convert a stretch of Temple Street into a single-lane woonerf (a pedestrian-friendly walkway that can accommodate cars).
Zinn said the impetus for the project came from hearing residents call the Green a space “to go through,” not a place “to come to.” He described the current iteration of the redesign as “fairly modest,” because it won’t change the Green’s overall “shape” or “color.”
After listening to the presentation, HDC Commissioner David Valentino seemed skeptical. He argued that design changes wouldn’t address the Green’s main problem: crime.
People “don’t feel comfortable on the Green because there’s no policing,” said Valentino. The “biggest conversation we [need to] have about the Green” is that there’s “open-air drug use” and “public defecation.”
“I think the Green is a spot that reflect[s] a cross-section of our society and all the attendant ups and downs of that,” responded Zinn. As city engineer, he said he couldn’t speak much to public safety; he noted that, from a “tactical” perspective, having more people use the Green in “responsible” or “positive” ways would have a “beneficial effect.”
He also assured the commission that the police department is part of the planning process.
That exchange led HDC Commissioner Richard Munday to question why the city’s engineering department is leading the project.
Zinn said his department is tasked with “building things,” and that it’s only one of the many departments involved. “I think you can make an argument that the project can sort of sit anywhere,” he added.
“I don’t think the project can sit anywhere,” retorted Katherine Learned, chair of the commission. “The stewardship of a national landmark from a historic perspective is a very, very different approach,” which is why she wants clarity on where “authority” and “responsibility” for the project rests.
“Why are we being so negative?” asked Commissioner Karen Jenkins. “I’m sitting here in City Hall assuming that there are other departments involved, and that Giovanni might be the one who drew the short straw to come tonight.”
Zinn assured the commission that he was “happy to be here and answer your questions.”
“Do you think the fact that the rendering shows pink signifies that perhaps [the paths] might be pink?” asked Munday while looking at the image presented by Zinn. Munday worried that pink would disrupt the “language that ties together” the Green. Zinn promised the pink was only a “placeholder.”
“I’ve been around for long enough to know that placeholders sometimes become a decision,” said Learned. “They don’t feel like placeholders, and this is our chance, as you suggested,” to ensure “our concerns are clearly articulated.”
“I think we just need to take a leap of faith that the pink” won’t be the actual color of the paths, said Jenkins.
Zinn reiterated that they aren’t planning to pave pink paths on the Green.
That aside, the city team hasn’t yet decided on materials, said Zinn, though they’ve heard requests from multiple residents to choose something less hazardous in the winter than the stone dust currently used in some of the Green’s walkways.
Learned and Anstress Farwell, founder of the Urban Design League, then voiced broader frustrations about what they view as limited community outreach on the project.
Farwell, in particular, said she had requested an HDC meeting about the proposal more than 10 months ago. Since it was getting late at Wednesday’s meeting, she asked the HDC to make the Green proposal a recurring agenda item. Learned agreed.
“When a process goes to a certain point, people become committed to it,” Learned told Zinn. “I think that this conversation is long overdue, and I hope this is [just] the beginning.”