The “Downtown for All” zoning overlay district, which includes portions of Dwight. A group of Dwight historic preservationists has sued the city and the Board of Alders in an effort to scrap a recently approved zoning update designed to make it easier to build more housing downtown. In th eir appeal, the plaintiffs warn that the build-build-build effort could lead to the demolition of historic homes and decreased property values in nearby national historic districts. The Friends of the Dwight Historic District Corporation filed that lawsuit in state court on Feb. 25, arguing that the city failed to seek sufficient public input before the alders approved (on Dec. 1, 2025) and the mayor signed into law (on Dec. 16, 2025) the “Downtown For All” zoning text and map amendment. Broadly speaking, that update loosens restrictions on the size, density, configurations, and locations of new residential developments downtown. The Downtown for All zoning overlay district extends far enough west to include portions of the Dwight neighborhood. In their complaint, the preservationists accuse the city and the alders of acting “illegally, arbitrarily and in abuse of [their] discretion” by adopting a law that, among other potential impacts, “will lead to demolitions and the building of large, inappropriate additions to and in the vicinity of historic buildings which will adversely alter the character and nature of” the four national historic districts in the area, especially Dwight’s. Last Thursday, city Assistant Corporation Counsel Earle Giovanniello — writing on behalf of the City of New Haven and the Board of Alders — filed a motion to dismiss the zoning appeal on the grounds that the Dwight crew lacks standing and that their appeal is “untimely” because it was filed a month and a half later than it should have been per state law. The group that filed the lawsuit is lead by Dwight residents Jane Comins and Olivia Martson, who also played key roles in a separate successful lawsuit against the Elicker administration regarding the alder-approved $1 sale of a public park on Kensington Street to an affordable housing developer in 2020. In 2023, the city dropped plans to turn that greenspace into 15 new income-restricted apartments, thereby preserving the park. State business records show that the Dwight Historic District Corporation — the group that has sued to stop Downtown for All from going into effect — filed its certificate of incorporation on Nov. 21, 2025. That’s a little more than a week after the Board of Alders Legislation Committee held a public hearing on, and unanimously endorsed, the upzoning proposal. Martson told the Independent on Monday that the group includes roughly a dozen members, including some homeowners in the Dwight area. “We should have incorporated many years ago,” she said, given their longstanding work to preserve historic homes in Dwight. Plaintiff: Beware Historic-Home Demolition The Dwight group’s nine-page lawsuit was written by West Haven-based attorney David Pite. The appeal claims that that the city and the alders “began planning for and discussing the ordinance and its anticipated implementation and approval” as early as April 2022. (Click here to read an Independent article from that time about then-Downtown Alder Eli Sabin’s pitch for denser residential development downtown. Sabin shepherded the Downtown for All zoning update to passage last year before resigning on inauguration day to move to Westville and run for state representative.) The Dwight crew argues that the city and the alders “sought no public comment or input until four days prior to the first and only public hearing” on the Downtown for All proposal, and then “ignored” or didn’t address concerns raised by the plaintiff, “other concerned and affected citizens,” and the New Haven Preservation Trust. The Downtown for All updates portend a “potential negative impact on historic homes and buildings and other structures” in the Dwight, Chapel Street, Ninth Square, and Elm Street national historic districts, the plaintiff warns. “Additionally, the new Floor Area Ratio (hereafter ‘FAR’) provisions of the ordinance would likely incentivize developers to acquire and demolish homes in order to be able to build the larger structures that would be allowed and accommodated under the amended ordinance and overlay.” The lawsuit states that the Dwight historic preservationists urged the city to remove the Dwight Street and Elm Street national historic districts from the Downtown for All zoning overlay’s “inner core” area, “since they contain the most cohesive and largest intact concentrations of 18th and 19th century buildings in New Haven that could be jeopardized” by redevelopment. (The zoning updates allow for a FAR of 12.0 in the Downtown for All overlay district’s “inner core” and a FAR of 6.0 in the overlay district’s “outer core.”) The lawsuit also states that the zoning updates will “likely result in diminished neighborhood property values, due to the likelihood of demolitions and the addition of large inappropriate additions to historic buildings or in their vicinity, and therefore could substantially or permanently injure plaintiff and its members as well as other residents and many of the historic neighborhood properties.” The plaintiffs conclude by asking the court to declare “null and void,” reverse, or modify as appropriate the Downtown for All zoning updates, especially in regards to its FAR provisions and its potential impact on the Dwight historic district. City: Zoning Appeal Came Too Late In a nine-page memorandum in support of a motion to dismiss that was filed on April 2, the city and the alders argue that the plaintiff does not have standing to contest this zoning decision. “It is well-settled law that a legally cognizable injury is a prerequisite to establish standing,” Giovanniello wrote on behalf of the defendants. Merely owning property in the city, as the Dwight group’s members do, is “insufficient to establish a specific, personal and legal interest in a zoning ordinance affecting property in New Haven’s downtown area.” Giovanniello also wrote that state law requires that an appeal of a zoning decision be made within 15 days “from the date that notice of the decision was published.” In this case, the notice for the approval of the Downtown for All zoning update was published on Dec. 26, 2025, according to Giovanniello. “Any appeal should have been commenced before January 12, 2026. This appeal is dated February 23, 2026. Therefore, it is untimely.” The defendants then conclude that the appeal should be dismissed. On Monday, Martson said that her group’s lawyer will be reviewing the city’s motion to dismiss. “We filed as soon as we could,” she said when asked about the claim that their appeal was untimely. She said that her group was delayed in filing their appeal in part because they were waiting for a response from the city to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request or documents related to the Downtown for All planning process. The post Dwight Crew Sues To Overturn Upzoning appeared first on New Haven Independent. ...read more read less