Hill-to-Downtown Transit-Oriented Development Community Plan
City of New Haven, Connecticut, New Haven, CT
New Haven’s gateway district: a new front door for the city
The City of New Haven initiated the Hill-to-Downtown Community Plan to unlock the potential of this transit served location as a walkable, mixed-use medical, research, residential, and retail district between downtown New Haven and the Hill neighborhood. Located directly adjacent to historic Union Station, the area has languished since urban-renewal-era planning resulted in widespread land clearance and left a disjointed and dysfunctional street network.
Developed through a robust public process that engaged all community and institutional stakeholders, the Community Plan includes the following initiatives:
- Reconnects Downtown, the Hill, and the Medical District (Yale New Haven Hospital, Yale School of Medicine, and related research enterprises) with each other
- Promotes redevelopment of the 300-unit Church Street South section 8 residential complex as a 750-unit mixed-income, mixed-use community
- Links Union Station to the district and downtown through creation of a Union Square, a gateway public space and destination
- Revises zoning that incorporate height transitions between higher density research and residential areas and the modest scale of surrounding neighborhoods
