Urban Planning-New Haven, this time

If you're interested in participating with the discussions on the designs for updating New Haven's downtown area to replace the old Mall and the old Coliseum, you can go to an upcoming workshop to be held at Ninth Square, in New Haven, CT.

People could break into groups and tour the sites. Ledbetter and Munday agreed that the ideas generated from the workshops should be put up on the city's Web site so that more comments can be added. I feel that this is a great idea. Hopefully, the workshops and Web comments will generate good ideas that will be taken seriously.

The ideas generated so far are controversial. I hope that the new plans encompass all of New Haven's classes of people, not just for those who can spend lots on the stores in the proposed new marketplace. After all, the new Downtown Gateway Master Plan is supposed to serve community college students, not just Yale students.

Some residential units are proposed, but I do not know how many are marked for "affordable housing." There should be a good percentage of units available at very "affordable" rates. If New Haven's urban planning project goes like those of White Plains and Stamford (20 or 30 years ago), then there will be no housing for the poor. We will then continue the cycle of urban homelessness and blight, instead of improving the issue. When White Plains and Stamford "renewed" their downtown areas, they put the poor in temporary housing in motels for a fixed period of time. No permanent dwellings were provided. People were expected to drift off to Bridgeport. This is only one reason why Bridgeport had so many problems.

After Hurricane Katrina, Mayor DeStefano offered housing for New Orleans' newly homeless population. As one could expect, this evoked an outcry from some people right here in New Haven, because they had already been on the waiting list for years!

I hope that New Haven plans intelligently, and does not make the same mistake that other cities have made!

Home from a Junked 747

Architect David Hertz of Santa Monica is designing a home made from an old 747 jet. His client, Francie Rehwald wants a curvy, eco-clean home where she can practice yoga, organic gardening and meditation. Scrap from the junked plane will be used to build a number of buildings on the hilly site. The nose will be a meditation building, a wing will be an awning, and other pieces will be used for an art studio, loft and a barn. This venture will come to 1.5 to 2 million. The plane will be buffed to reduce its shine and remove paint so that it will not disturb neighbors or confuse planes flying above. Ms. Rehwald's property is surrounded by former spouses of Bob Dylan and Olivia Newton-John, so it needs a low profile appearance. Other "neighbors" are the coyotes, mountain lions and rattlesnakes that traverse the area. Ms. Rehwald has an archeologist to help her deal with the wildlife.

Source: Frangos, Alex, "West Coast Woman To Build Crash Pad Out of an Old 747," Wall Street Journal, Weekend Edition, Nov. 5-6, 2005.

Clean Energy Conference

The Massachusetts Technology Transfer Center and the Center for Economic and Environmental Partnership, Inc. will host a conference November 7, 2005 in Boston, to promote business ventures in clean energy in the Northeast. The Massachusetts Hydrogen Coalition and the Energy Special Interest Group at the MIT Enterprise Forum will have special sessions.

A career fair will be held in the afternoon for jobseekers and employers.

Center for Economic and Environmental Partnership:
http://store.mountainmedia.com/ceepinc/calendar.cfm?do=detail&d=3191&c=4943&p=33332