The owner of this Howe Street gas station near downtown New Haven has proposed demolishing his business and building 44 market-rate apartment units in its place. Image courtesy of the city of New Haven.

Under fire from a group of community activists accusing them of paving the way for gentrification and not including neighborhood feedback, New Haven city planners fired back saying a proposed rezoning of major neighborhood boulevards was the culmination of dozens of community meetings and years of public input, including polling that showed support for the changes.

In an interview with the New Haven Independent, City Planning Director Aïcha Woods defended the Commercial Gateway Districts plan that would see mixed-use, pedestrian-oriented zoning introduced on Grand Avenue in the city’s Wooster Square neighborhood, on Whalley Avenue in the Dwight and Edgewood neighborhoods and on Dixwell Avenue in the road’s eponymous neighborhood.

The roads are currently zoned according to mid-20th century, auto-dominated urban planning philosophies. The plan is being touted as a way to make it easier and faster for small investors and nonprofit community developers to get viable projects approved. The city argues that large developers will otherwise be able to build on the avenues’ large lots thanks to their ability to afford drawn-out approval processes.