Suburban Fundraisers Sing For Hill’s Tiny Homes
by Lisa Reisman, New Haven Independent, Nov. 20, 2023
(Updated with Mayor Elicker’s response) Sixty tiny-home supporters at a church in North Branford lifted their voices in song. It was about electricity and housing affordability, and aimed at New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker. The occasion was “Home for the Holidays,” a brunch fundraiser held on Saturday, Nov. 11, at Zion Episcopal Church in North Branford to raise support for ongoing expenses toward sustaining New Haven’s Rosette Neighborhood Village, with its six tiny homes that house people who had been living in tents.
The event raised $10,000, according to organizer Colleen Shaddox, member of the Rosette Village Collective, and author of “Broke in America: Seeing, Understanding, and Ending US Poverty.” …
Electricity is “the last piece of the puzzle” for the six shelters on Rosette Street, said Jacob Miller, a real estate professional and the son-in-law of Mark Colville, co-leader of the Amistad Catholic Worker House. The houses “basically meet all the baseline provisions for most building and zoning codes,” he said. … Beyond that, “we have the funds and a licensed electrician who’s ready to do that work with-in 24 hours. We just need the city to issue a permit to allow UI to turn the electricity on.”
“The stumbling block,” he said, is “a 100-year-old zoning code that doesn’t contemplate tiny houses.” That means Rosette Village is constrained “to follow the same drawn-out process as someone who’s redeveloping a 100-unit apartment building, leasing it out, and then selling it for $20 million,” he said, referring to the apparently stalled redevelopment of an apartment complex on Congress and Davenport Avenues.
Update: In a follow-up interview with the Independent Monday afternoon, Elicker said that city staff had a “productive meeting” with representatives from the Rosette Village group last week in his administration’s ongoing efforts to try to get these shelters into compliance with local zoning and state building codes. He also criticized the “hypocrisy” of residents of an affluent suburb criticizing New Haven for not doing enough to support affordable housing, when a third of New Haven’s housing stock is affordable while only 2.2 percent of North Branford’s is. …
Mark Colville called out the mayor for impeding the process. “His argument, that it isn’t fair to the other homeowners in the immediate area, doesn’t make sense,” he said.“All our neighbors have not only been informed, but consenting of this from the beginning and many have become active participants.” Regarding the electricity issue, “City Hall is telling us that these encampments are unsafe and unsanitary,” he said.“It’s essentially the same argument they’re using for not turning the electricity in our backyard in the tiny homes. Because they don’t have electricity, they’re not safe, so we won’t turn on the electricity.” … 
“I think all the time of the expression ‘love your neighbor as yourself,’” said Lucy LaRocca, Zion Episcopal’s assistant rector. “It doesn’t say neighbor just as the person next door or down the street.We need to love our neighbors wherever they are.” …
Thomas Breen contributed to this report.
[Read the article in its entirety: newhavenindependent.org/article/north_branford_church_calls_on_mayor_elicker_to_power_tiny_homes_in_song]
