This Time, Bedroom-Boosting Plan OK’d

A plan to build new bedrooms atop a derelict Winchester Avenue home’s backyard won approval the second time around — after calls for more, quality housing beat out concerns about neighborhood change.

The Board of Zoning Appeals (BZA) took that unanimous vote Tuesday night during its latest monthly meeting, held in-person at City Hall and online via Zoom.

In a 4‑to‑0 decision, the zoning board approved 67 Winchester LLC’s application for variances to allow a side yard setback of 2.8 feet where 8 feet is required, a building wall height of 17 feet where 5.6 feet is permitted, and a building coverage of 37 percent where 30 percent is permitted for an addition to the existing structure at 67 Winchester Ave.

Notably, the two BZA members who cast the decisive ​“no” votes against 67 Winchester’s application in July — Chris Peralta and Gemini Rorie — were not present at Tuesday’s meeting. The three BZA members who voted in support of the July application — Martinez, Adam Waters, and Al Paolillo, Sr. — were joined by BZA Chair Mildred Melendez this time around in voting to approve the modified application.

As local attorney Ben Trachten explained at the top of Tuesday’s hearing, this application seeks to allow the landlord — a company controlled by James Huffman of North Haven — to build out roughly 384 square feet on both the first and second floors of a dilapidated, vacant two-family home.

That new square footage will add two bedrooms and a bathroom to each floor, increasing the first floor from a two-bedroom to a four-bedroom apartment, and the second floor from a one-bedroom to a three-bedroom.

“This will stay a two-family” house, he said. The proposed addition concerns the number of bedrooms, not the number of rental units.

In July, Huffman’s company sought to add around 480 square feet to each of the first and second floors. Now, Trachten explained, his client is looking to add roughly 100 square feet less per floor. He also noted that this new application includes an additional foot of sideyard, and more information regarding ​“landscaping and aesthetics.”

Trachten contended that this application was ​“substantially” different than the one rejected in July.

City zoning director Nate Hougrand told the board at the start of the hearing that city law prohibits them from hearing the same application more than once in a 12-month period. However, he said, given the ​“dimensional differences and increase in amount of testimony staff received prior to” Tuesday’s hearing, he said it was up to the zoning board to decide whether or not they could hear this matter.

The board wound up agreeing that it was a different enough application, and let Trachten and Huffman make their case.

Recognizing that last month’s application tanked in part because of neighbor criticism that he was an out-of-town landlord looking to cash in on building more rooms to cram grad students into, Huffman stressed that he lived in New Haven before moving to North Haven, and that he works locally.

“I’m not just here to make a quick dollar. I’m heavily invested in the neighborhood,” he said. He said this will be his third housing rehab within 100 yards of 67 Winchester Ave. ​“I’m not just thinking short term to make a quick dollar,” he repeated. ​“I’m looking forward to doing a beautiful project.”

Many of the same neighbors who spoke out against the 67 Winchester expansion in July turned out again to oppose Huffman’s modified proposal.

Mansfield Street resident Fabian Drixler argued that the proposed addition ​“is grossly inconsistent with the character of the neighborhood,” and will still hurt neighbors’ quality of life and property values by casting a longer shadow and bringing more residents with more cars to the street.

It’s ​“getting to the point where it’s just not the neighborhood it was,” Winchester Avenue resident Jerome Tureck lamented.

Ally Brundige, who lives right next to 67 Winchester, agreed. ​“I don’t like the idea of all the yard basically being taken up” by the expanded building, she said. ​“And I don’t see the reason for it” besides someone wanting more money from more rentals. ​“It’s not like a homeowner will be living in it.”

Unlike at July’s hearing, on Tuesday, several members of the public also Zoomed in to testify in support of the expansion.

Yu Xuan Lin, an MD-PhD student at Yale, recalled looking for a place to live in New Haven soon after she got accepted into her program.

“I genuinely felt sad,” she remembered, given how relatively old and shabby so many New Haven rental options were. ​“It took me a very long time to be happy living in New Haven,” she said.

Ultimately, she wound up buying a home that Huffman had renovated ​“with details that are absolutely beautiful. … It’s a place that makes me really happy” to go home at the end of the day. ​“It’s one of the things that makes me want to stay in the area.”

Winchester Avenue resident Christopher Walker said he grew up in New Haven, and returned to his home city in 2019. He struggled to find a renovated, clean apartment he could afford.

“One of the things that is a real detriment to this neighborhood is the blight in the area,” he said. ​“It’s something that has been prevalent for a long time.” He argued that ​“the new supply of units is really important,” and it is ​“really disappointing to not have something immediately affordable,” especially for someone like himself who grew up in the city.

He urged fellow city residents to embrace neighborhood change. ​“Change is essentially inevitable, and I think progress happens.”

Trachten made a similar closing argument to the board before they took a vote. ​“Neighborhoods change over time,” he said. ​“What people want in terms of bedroom size, common space changes over time.” This proposal ​“diminishes the overall impact of the housing shortage that we’re experiencing.”

And, he stressed, the landlord could undertake a similar addition as of right — without zoning relief — but the project would lose some of the greenspace, ​“cohesive design,” and ​“logical alignment of roof lines.” ​“This is what yields the most logical and aesthetically correct result,” he said.

Ultimately, the zoning board agreed. ​“Making a house that is in continuity with the neighborhood is a lot better than something that’s botched,” BZA member Michael Martinez said. ​“We need housing.”

With that, all four zoning board members voted to approve.