Neighbors urge more engagement, oppose some student housing and rezoning in Fifeville and West Haven

Speakers from Fifeville and West Haven told council that recent zoning changes and proposed developments did not include sufficient neighborhood engagement and risk accelerating displacement of long-term residents.

Sarah Malpass of the Bifield Neighborhood Association asked council to reopen conversations about zoning in the area near 7th Street and the Cherry Avenue corridor and to institute clearer protocols for when neighborhood associations should be engaged. "We were all quite surprised to find that there were some changes that happened in other parts of the neighborhood where we had not been necessarily engaged," Malpass said.

Wendy Galfar and Joy Johnson described the cumulative impacts of new student housing and rezoning. Galfar said the narrative that luxury student housing frees multifamily homes for families is misplaced and pointed to local renovation efforts that preserve housing for families. Joy Johnson, chair of FAR, highlighted rising rents and argued the city must change zoning at the edges of lower-income neighborhoods to avoid marginalizing communities such as West Haven.

Speakers asked council for faster work sessions on zoning and stronger protocols for developer-community coordination. Several commenters also linked opposition to renewal of the Flock surveillance contract with concerns about data collection in majority-Black and Brown neighborhoods.

Councilors acknowledged the concerns and said city staff will pursue additional engagement and scheduled processes (a January work session was suggested by a commenter as insufficient by neighbors who said construction could proceed before then). No regulatory changes were adopted at this meeting; the comments were submitted during the public comment period for consideration by staff and council.