Continued
Today, a handful of those who saved the buildings - and helped revitalize
SoNo - will be honored at 50 Elmwood Ave. by the current incarnation
of the Norwalk Preservation Trust. Findlay and Lichtenstein will receive
awards, as will syndicated columnist and former Mayor Bill Collins
and former redevelopment director Rod Johnson, among others. The awards
are named after Valle Fay, who died in 1997.
"South
Norwalk didn't look like it does today," said Tod Bryant, president
of the Norwalk Preservation Trust. "It was not a wonderful place
to be. Due to the vision and the leadership and hard work of a lot
of people, those wonderful buildings were saved."
Back
then, said Collins, who was elected mayor in 1977, redevelopment wasn't
about integrating old buildings into new developments. "It was
tear 'em down, start from scratch," he said.
"The
other side of South Norwalk is a classic example of that. The west
side of North Main Street - that was a functioning neighborhood. Conventional
redevelopment had leveled that . . . and built modern buildings that
were immensely uninteresting, like 50 Washington St."
One
of the first things Collins did after the election was squelch the
demolition of those buildings on South Main Street. After spending
time in Europe while in the military, he said he had come to value
the importance and beauty of an old building. And he knew Norwalk
had its share of old, important buildings.
And
he had attended Findlay's lecture.
Getting
the rest of the city on board to save those buildings - and to restore
other parts of South Norwalk - proved difficult. Then Lichtenstein,
Fay and other preservationists came in.
"It
was like pulling teeth," Collins said. "There was no enthusiasm
from the community - except from the preservationist community. They
were very sophisticated, but they hadn't had many victories."
Soon
they did. With the help of developer Arthur Collins (no relation to
the former mayor), the buildings along South Main Street were restored
- as were many other buildings in what would become SoNo.
By
1988, the city had won a national redevelopment award for revitalizing
the neighborhood - though Collins said he has never seen that award,
because it was formally issued shortly after he left office.
These
days, the area is valued not only by the Norwalk Preservation Trust
as a model for development, but by city officials as well.
"In
my mind, Norwalk turned a corner with Washington Street," said
Timothy Sheehan, executive director of the city Redevelopment Agency.
"We learned very valuable lessons: that conservation and those
important architectural amenities in an area need to be understood
and integrated into a plan."
Yet
SoNo's turnaround followed the same pattern as many other rebounding
neighborhoods in U.S. cities.
After
redevelopment made the neighborhood attractive again, rents rose,
and many lower-income and minority residents were pushed out, officials
said.
Sheehan
disputed that redevelopment was responsible for these problems, saying
they are countywide. But former Mayor Alex Knopp said his administration
tried to keep gentrification caused by the renewal plan from creeping
into nearby South Norwalk neighborhoods.
Village
district plans, for instance, deterred outside investors from buying
small businesses along South Main Street and knitting them together
into one massive store, he said.
"Developement
is going to happen in the area," Knopp said. "We thought,
'It's better if it happens under a plan that recognizes the impact
of gentrification.' "
But
NEON Executive Director Joseph Mann said the city has not done enough
to keep housing affordable in South Norwalk. He applauded preservation
efforts in the neighborhood but said the city needs to be equally
concerned with housing for low-income residents.
"It's
a difficult issue. You have to allow them to develop, but there's
nothing on the city's books that ensures that affordability is something
that's always addressed," he said.
The
city's recently created affordable housing ordinance requires that
at least 10 percent of units in new multifamily developments are affordable
to households earning less than 80 percent of the state median income,
or $65,000 for a family of four. But that does not do the job, Mann
said.
"That's
not enough by a long stretch," Mann said. Affordable housing
"is becoming scarce - particularly in South Norwalk. It's running
people out of South Norwalk."
