Ex-El Amigo Felix on Whalley: Still the pits. A 14-block rezoning that was intended to promote dense, mixed-use development on Whalley Avenue has yielded no new places to live in the nearly five years since it was approved by the Board of Alders.That’s the latest with the city’s sole designated Commercial Gateway District (CGD), which spans Whalley Avenue from Howe Street to Pendleton Street.The Board of Alders greenlit that rezoning in January 2020 after months of public debate about how best to spur dense, walkable, and environmentally sustainable development along a downtown-adjacent corridor that is currently dominated by surface parking lots, fast-food restaurants, and other small commercial venues, and was historically zoned for car dealerships.The rezoning established density minimums of between 25 and 35 units per acre for mixed-use and residential developments; replaced parking minimums with parking maximums, including no more than one parking space per unit for residential developments; and increased the allowable floor area ratio (FAR) for new building projects to 3.0, with additional density available through a variety of environmental sustainability incentives, including the use of mass timber construction methods.The Harp administration initially sought to apply this new district to stretches of Whalley, Grand, and Dixwell, but neighborhood pushback saw the city move forward with the rezoning only for Whalley.“This package of text amendments is ambitious in a number of ways,” Westville Alder and City Plan Commissioner Adam Marchand said at the time of the January 2020 approval of the Whalley Avenue rezoning.​“It pushes the envelope in terms of zoning on the issue of design standards, on the issue of green design, on the issue of density and New Urbanist principles.” The lack of housing development in the CGD marks just the latest city attempt to promote density that has struggled to make an impact, along with a law supporting the use of accessory dwelling units and one creating ​“Inclusionary Zoning” affordable apartments.What’s the deal?There has been some progress in the past year, according to City Plan Director Laura Brown. She said that a total of 52 new apartments across two different building projects located within the Whalley CGD have won city approvals — even if they haven’t been built yet.One is the proposed 49-unit mixed-use development to be built by the church-affiliated St. Luke’s Development Corporation and the housing authority’s Glendower Group at 117 and 129 Whalley Ave., 10 Dickerman St., and 34 and 36 Sperry St. While the project was re-approved this year, this development dates back well more than a decade, predating the adoption of the CGD by several years. The second is a proposed new six-unit apartment building to be constructed by local pizzamaker Kadir Catalbasoglu at the site of the demolished former El Amigo Felix Mexican restaurant at 8 Whalley Ave. In a recent interview with the Independent, Brown advocated for patience before judging the success of the CGD, especially given delays related to the Covid-19 pandemic. “In the best-case scenario, you’re looking at several years to bring a project to fruition. Given the pandemic, I wouldn’t have expected to see immediate results from a zoning change,” she said. ​“I think five years out is a good point at which to start assessing: Is this doing what we want it to do?”Brown said that the city will be evaluating the CGD as part of its current ​“Vision 2034” Comprehensive Plan process and may make changes to the zoning. She did not specify what those changes might be.“We’re not actively working on tweaking [the CGD] at this time,” she added.Carlos Eyzaguirre, a deputy economic development administrator with the city, also stressed that he expects the city’s other infrastructure investments in the corridor — including $1.8 million in traffic calming measures and funding for a Bus Rapid Transit line — to spur more development in the CGD.For local land use attorney Ben Trachten, the complete absence of development in this rezoned area is in part due to the complexity of the CGD ordinance, and in part because of an already sluggish new-construction market on Whalley.“None of it has worked out. It has proven to be overly complicated and the numbers do not work for developers,” Trachten said. ​“It did not spur the development that the people who pushed so hard for it thought it would. ”He pointed to an October 2021 decision by the Board of Zoning Appeals (BZA) to block the renovation of two existing apartments at 161 Whalley Ave. because they did not meet the required CGD density minimum of 11 units. After the apartments sat empty for three years, the two-unit conversion, which was sought by Trachten’s client Catalbasoglu, was ultimately approved by the zoning board this November.At the time Catalbasoglu said he was disappointed in the BZA’s decision. Reached by text for this article, he wrote, ​“You know the problem…just say it’s not good.”“The CGD, I believe, was adopted in 2019, we gave it some time,” Trachten told the commissioners at that November BZA meeting. ​“We’ve seen no development, you know. And in this case, it results in complete deprivation of my client’s property rights, and on the flip side, allowing us to do this has virtually no impact on the neighborhood other than the beneficial impact.”Trachten said that he has seen the CGD’s density minimums prevent people from converting property into usable apartments and that there should be clearer pathways in the zoning for conversion of existing buildings. He also stressed that the success of the St. Luke’s development has ​“no relation” to the CGD, noting the project has been in the works for years before the zoning change.“You can’t give all the credit to the commercial district because this was on the drawing board,” Eyzaguirre agreed when asked how to evaluate the St. Luke’s development in the context of the CGD rezoning. ​“But I think having this line up with our overall zoning goals made it exciting to see this first project out the gate that utilizes some of the commercial gateway characteristics.”49 apartments coming soon next to St. Luke's?