Continued
Future Shock
These
kinds of ambitious urban renewal projects have a checkered history.
In New York City, legendary "master builder" Robert Moses
carved up neighborhoods with massive bridges and highways. In New
Haven, according to Douglas Rae, Yale professor, author and former
city administrator, more than 20,000 residents and more than 2,000
businesses were displaced by redevelopment projects in the 1950s and
1960s - often through the use of eminent domain.
Many
Norwalk property owners are worried about a similar scenario - albeit
at a much smaller scale - in the West Avenue area.
City
officials and the developer have said that several existing businesses
- such as Currie Tire - do not have the appropriate uses for Seligson's
plan. So far, the redevelopment agency has asked Seligson to integrate
only one of those businesses into the proposal: the showroom of Devan
Acura at 625 West Ave. A few properties still must purchased in the
Wall Street plan as well, according to Munro Johnson, a senior project
manager with the Norwalk Redevelopment Agency.
Anthony
Savas, who owns a three-story apartment building at 16 Chapel St.,
said he is not interested in selling to Seligson. Savas said all he
wants is replacement apartments in the new development to house his
tenants and his office.
"I
have a minority tenant. I have a handicapped tenant," Savas said.
"I want to make sure they have a place to go."
So
far, he said, Seligson has made no such offer.
Others,
such as Keal Evans, who owns European Auto Center Repair at 539 West
Ave., said he is "not even close" to reaching a deal with
Seligson.
"A
couple of weeks ago, he made me an offer. But there's nothing I can
buy in the area for the price he offered," Evans said. "I
don't want to stop progress. I just wanted to be treated fairly."
Douglas
Adams, Seligson's vice president of development, has said he is in
"active negotiations" with several property owners in the
West Avenue area, including Evans. He said he met with Savas about
a year ago but has not spoken to him since.
City
officials have said they will use eminent domain only as a last resort,
as Mayor Richard Moccia said Wednesday at a news conference at City
Hall. And since the fallout from the controversial 2005 Kelo case
- in which the Supreme Court ruled that New London could use eminent
domain to take land for a redevelopment plan - Norwalk has made property
seizure more difficult for the redevelopment agency. Each seizure
for the West Avenue plan, according to agency officials, now requires
a case-by-case vote from the Common Council. The same rule would apply
to the council's March 13 vote on the Wall Street plan.
Johnson,
the project manager, agreed that urban renewal projects do not have
a sterling record. But he said the culture created by Robert Moses
is no longer the norm.
"I
want to believe that the planning and development community is cognizant
of our dubious legacy from the '60s and '70s," he said. "I
think some key things have changed since then." One of the crucial
changes, he said, is the involvement of the federal government - which
largely funded urban renewal projects and played a role in the planning
process.
"You
had these decisions being made about the urban environment from these
remote locations at 30,000 feet," Johnson said. "That led
to some crass and careless decisions."
Now,
he said, private developers pay much of the cost. And, as with the
West Avenue project, public hearings are integral to the planning
process - though some property owners, such as Savas, dispute the
effectiveness of these hearings.
Another
key change, Johnson said, is the physical redevelopment process -
which buildings are demolished, which buildings are restored and what
the new construction will look like against the backdrop of an existing
neighborhood. Instead of leveling entire blocks - as was done in urban
renewal programs in countless cities - there is, as Johnson said,
sensitivity to the "existing urban fabric."
The
developers - as well as the city - appear to have taken that sensitivity
to heart.
Re-creating
the past
Kenneth
Olson gets excited when he talks about how his redevelopment plan
will work with the surrounding area. Olson, the president of Poko
Partners, which is developing one of the Wall Street plans, is looking
to restore the old Regent Theater and 83 Wall St.
"These
are old buildings that add flavor," he said. "We're not
keen on knocking everything down. We don't want everything to look
homogenous."
Olson
is just as excited about the "green" aspects of his design.
His buildings, he said, will use recycled materials. Heating, cooling
and electricity will be powered by a cogeneration system - a clean,
inexpensive way to produce energy. There will be "highly efficient"
windows, he said.
Olson
does not know whether his project will be "LEED certified"-
that is, certified by the United States Green Building Council, which
rates green buildings. But he said his project is about "smart
planning."
"We
are antagonistic to cars," he said. "We want to slow down
traffic on Wall Street and West Avenue, which functions as a highway.
We don't want that to be the case anymore. We want people to travel
much more slowly."
"If
I could give everyone a bicycle, I would," he said.
Johnson
said shovels should be in the ground at Wall Street in 2008.
It
is still unclear what role the old Wall Street train station will
play in the area's redevelopment. But after Louis Schulman, administrator
of the Norwalk Transit District, spoke with the state Department of
Transportation a year ago, he said the possibility of restoring the
station did not sound promising. The South Norwalk and Merritt 7 stations
are too close together, he said, and the potential impact on running
time could be too great.
Despite
the mass-transit snag, there has still been a great deal of emphasis
on the "walkability" and scale of these developments.
The
West Avenue developer, for instance, has taken pains to examine both
in the project. When the plan was initially proposed, according to
Adams, Seligson's vice president of development, there were apartment
buildings that towered over nearby homes. There was a massive parking
garage. Shops were larger.
In
a letter to the city, Michael Mushak, of 50 Elmwood Ave., called the
proposal "big-box hell."
After
Seligson began working with Street Works, a White Plains, N.Y., development
consultant, the scale became considerably smaller. The design turned
into a more traditional "Main Street USA" - as Adams puts
it - that, like the Wall Street development, recalls a Norwalk of
more than a half-century ago.
"To
me, this is urbanism," Adams said. "Here you had a downtown,
and you're trying to bring back that feel of urbanism. And what is
urban? It's mixed, it's dense, it is people working and living and
shopping, and it's been around for thousands of years."
The
switch appears to have won over many of the plan's initial detractors
- including Mushak.
Adams
said the simplest explanation of the design's transformation is this:
"The Norwalk community did not want West Avenue to become another
Route 1. Period."
