Make Way For 3 More Preschools

New Haven’s daycare ​“desert” is about to grow a bit more green, in the form of three new or expanded group child care centers in Fair Haven and Edgewood.

The Board of Zoning Appeals (BZA) heard those three proposals last Tuesday night during its latest monthly meeting, which was held online via Zoom and in person on the second floor of City Hall.

The commissioners voted unanimously in support of two of the proposals, and advanced a third to the City Plan Commission for review, per local zoning law, before taking the matter up for an expected final vote next month.

The two daycare proposals to win BZA support on Tuesday were special exceptions to permit group daycare homes in existing residential structures at 183 Blatchley Ave. in Fair Haven and 345 Norton St. in Edgewood.

The first property is a two-family house owned by Gilberta Guerrero Cardoso and Osiel Cardoso Romero. Melissa Cardoso Guerrero, who already runs Cardoso’s Multicultural Learning Center, presented the application to the commissioners.

She wrote in her application that the center will provide services to families with children between the ages of 2 and 5.

Guerroro told the commissioners that she currently serves six families out of the second floor of this Blatchley Avenue property. She’s looking to expand her daycare center to serve a total of 12 families, including out of a renovated site in the building’s basement.

“As a bilingual preschool teacher with 19 years of experience working in the Fair Haven community,” she wrote in her application, ​“I have learned the importance of teaching the children a nurturing, child-initiated play-based environment that fosters self-confidence, trust, creativity, autonomy, and acceptance of individual differences in our community.”

The zoning commissioners unanimously approved her application, after making clear that this was just the first step in a multi-step government review of the proposal. The city’s building department and the state’s Office of Early Childhood also have to approve the basement daycare center before it can open.

The second group daycare home to be approved by the BZA on Tuesday is located at 345 Norton St., a two-family home owned by Irod Lee.

Applicant Mariela Zamora told the commissioners in Spanish that she’s looking to open a group daycare center in a two-bedroom apartment.

City zoning director Nate Hougrand explained that the city’s group daycare definition allows for no fewer than 7 children and no more than 12. Zamora said she agrees to abide by those rules.

“The location is spacious with a really good backyard for the kids,” Zamora wrote in her application. ​“It has a great area for parking. It’s a commercial area with a lot of traffic.”

Kim Harris, who owns the Harris & Tucker preschool in Newhallville, spoke up in support of Zamora’s application during the public testimony section of Tuesday’s hearing.

“I am a preschool owner and there’s such a lack of preschools within New Haven,” Harris said. ​“We are a desert.” Therefore, she said, she supports Zamora’s application.

The third daycare proposal to be heard by the BZA on Tuesday was for a former mansion located at 1377 Ella T. Grasso Blvd.

An affiliate of the Greater Dwight Development Corporation (GDDC) bought that vacant property in 2018. In 2020, it won permission from the BZA back in January to convert it into a ground-floor daycare with upper-level housing for teachers.

On Tuesday, GDDC Assistant Director Mikhail Pingli and architect Matthew Rosen pitched the commissioners on a special exception to renew an expired BZA approval of 0 off-street parking spaces where 5 are required and 0 drop-off/pick-up loading spaces where 1 is required for the peripheral expansion of a child day care center.

Rosen said that the converted mansion will have two classrooms on the ground floor: one for toddlers, and one for infants. The building’s second floor will have two one-bedroom apartments, and its third floor will have one two-bedroom apartment.

“The reason for the lapse, among others,” Rosen said, is that ​“Covid delayed the project by a number of years.”

The application now heads to the City Plan Commission for review before returning to the BZA for a final vote next month.