Hartford hosted zoning and transportation meetings this week as one agency launches a new plan and the other moves toward refining regulations.

DOT gives quick explanation of TransformCT at the Lyceum

The Zoning 101 event was presented by Hartford 2000 — the coalition of Neighborhood Revitalization Zones — and the City of Hartford’s Department of Development Services. Actors Cindy Martinez and Taneisha Duggan from HartBeat Ensemble were in the audience at the Hartford Public Library, adding drama to liven up what is often, but does not have to be, presented as a dull topic. All seemed to agree that HartBeat’s involvement was the strong point of the evening.

As the presentation moved along, there was frustration when City of Hartford employees were not answering resident questions. This was intentional at first, as someone’s questions were deferred from middle to the end of the planned presentation. Later, it seemed that people were talking past each other.

Local activist Hyacinth Yennie asked “What about the enforcement? … that’s the most critical of all.” The City employees agreed, but gave no hard answer about how zoning regulations would be enforced.

Mary Ricker Pelletier wanted to know who is on the team that is making the zoning changes. She received no response.

Ricker Pelletier commented that residents are often asked for input at meeting after meeting, but are not involved or informed when compromises are made. She asked, “What is the compromise process?” She was told that people could go to the new zoning website to see how people could be involved.

Patricia Nelson, who is involved with both the Blue Hills and Upper Albany NRZs, said “there’s nothing being done” in her neighborhood, which she described as being part of the “north end.” She said that Blue Hills Avenue was a mess, that zoning issues were being ignored, and that there were a handful of development projects that have seemed to go nowhere. A specific zoning complaint was that “we have CRT [Community Renewal Team] that’s in the Fox Middle School right now working out of there” and she believes that is not where they ought to be. Nelson told the City: “y’all need to be doing things better.”

The response: more of nothing.

JoAnne Bauer, a West End resident, politely took the City to task for not answering questions already asked. She repeated them: Who is on the committee? What about the negotiation process? How are you going to bring this information out to the neighborhoods?

There will be more meetings, March 11-13, but these will not be in the neighborhoods: only in downtown. Caitlin Fitzpatrick from the Department of Development Services raced through a list of agencies who would be involved in the process. As we have come to expect, consultants from out-of-state are among those hired on. Fitzpatrick explained this by saying “we want to get the best bang for our buck.”

As for keeping residents involved in the negotiation process, Fitzpatrick was quick to say she was not “here” during One City One Plan — one of those public engagement items Ricker Pelletier named — but said “we need to do a better job” to make sure that “we’re on the same page.” Fitzpatrick believes a one-page explanation posted somewhere on the website justifying any compromises would be adequate.

When changes are made to zoning code they will be posted on the website. These changes, they said, will include more simplified language and pictures when possible to illustrate codes.

The next resident’s question made it clear that while the City is obviously attempting to make its public engagement process better, it needs to do much more. The man asked who he should speak to about a business zoning question.

One might have expected the City to post a list of names for community liaisons, something showing which person is responsible for which neighborhood.

Instead, the man received the start of a long explanation about NRZs.

He was persistent. Who in the City should he speak with?

Those listening knew what he wanted: a name and number or email address.

This municipal version of Who’s on First continued for eternity or two minutes. Finally, someone from the Department of Development Services said “I am one.”

He never introduced himself or offered much else in the way of help during that moment.

JoAnne Bauer and Mary Ricker Pelletier raised more questions about how the zoning for the built environment would interact with that of the natural environment. The City did have some answers here, saying that some new development will be required to have a certain amount of tree coverage. Bioswales were mentioned.

Dr. Bob Painter spoke up. Parking lots, he said, are required to have natural barriers between themselves and streets, but we rarely see this enforced. He suggested that this is probably because parking lot owners are “very powerful people.”

Again, the City simply said “enforcement will just have to be addressed.” No specifics as to how this addressing of it would look.

Patricia Nelson, still wanted answers to her other questions.

“Not to sound like a nag,” she apologized, but “when are we going to have anything built up in our [north end] neighborhoods?”

City employees said they did not know what projects she was referring to. It was unclear if Nelson was expected to provide names of the various projects on the spot, or talk some other time.

The Department of Development Services said “we’re trying to repair mistrust” by reaching out to the NRZs.

“The NRZ’s do not necessarily represent all of the community,” Ricker Pelletier said.

The Connecticut Department of Transportation’s meeting on TransformCT was less tense if only because there was no formal Q&A session and hardly any presentation.

In the same neighborhood — in fact, one block south of — where the CT DOT decided to recently shut down a street to motor vehicle, pedestrian, and cyclist traffic, the State agency showed up with charts, long surveys, video equipment, and an office supply closet’s worth of sticky notes. After giving some input, the presentation began. If you blinked, you missed it. They did not say how long the process of creating the strategic transportation plan would take, but their literature indicates 18-months. After some talk of how the gasoline tax is no longer sufficient — people driving less and vehicles having better fuel efficiency were described as the problems here — it was indicated that other solutions for funding transportation would be needed. Instead of asking questions of speakers, participants were sent back to write comments that would be stuck on poster boards. CT DOT employees were stationed around the room for one-on-one conversations. Anyone wishing to video record their comments could go into another room.

As people were filling out surveys and sticky notes, I heard concerns that citizen input would be ignored. A few cyclists noticed that the surveys were heavy on questions about roads and highways.

Here are some of the people’s concerns and wishes regarding transportation:

Let’s boil this down: