updated 10-4-07

New Haven's Ronan-Edgehill Neighborhood

About the Neighborhood

The Ronan-Edgehill Neighborhood is located between Whitney Avenue and Edwards, Prospect, and Cliff Streets. Its boundaries are those of the RS-1 Special Single Family Zone as defined in the City of New Haven's Zoning Ordinance.

One of two New Haven neighborhoods designed for protection by the zoning ordinance as being "of unique and irreplaceable value to the community as a whole," Ronan-Edgehill is a resource not only for its residents, but for the hundreds of people who daily walk, jog, and drive along its quiet streets.

Although residential in appearance, the neighborhood has always been (as historian Richard Hegel puts it) "institutionally-anchored." Coexisting with its 220 households are educational institutions (Foote and St. Thomas day schools; Bethesda, Calvin Hill, and Edith B. Jackson pre-schools; the public Celentano School; the Berkeley and Yale divinity schools); churches (Bethesda Lutheran, St. Thomas (Episcopal), and First Unitarian-Universalist Society); research centers (the Human Relations Area Files and the Institute of Sacred Music); and human service providers (Greenbriar, St. Francis Home, the Cedarhurst School, and There's No Place Like Home).

In addition, the churches serve as meeting places for dozens of cultural, charitable, and self-help groups.

RONAN-EDGEHILL NEIGHBORHOOD ASSOCIATION

For information about the Ronan-Edgehill Neighborhood Association, including our officers and by-laws, click this link Ronan-Edgehill Neighborhood Association

SECURITY & SAFETY

The Ronan-Edgehill Neighborhood Association maintains a private security patrol, coordinates blockwatch groups, and keeps residents informed of issuesrelating to security and safety. For information regarding neighborhood security issues, including contact information for our security officer and New Haven police and emergency services, go to Ronan-Edgehill Security

ARTISANS AND SERVICES

Owners of historic houses like those in the Ronan-Edgehill Neighborhood face particular difficulties in finding contractors, carpenters, electricians, plumbers, roofers, and other service people who understand the peculiarities of these unique properties. For recommended service providers, go to Recommended Artisans and Services. If you wish to add recommendations to this page, please contact the webmaster <pd_hall@harvard.edu>.

The neighborhood is home to many religious congregations. For information about these, click this link churches.html

SHOULD WE BECOME AN HISTORIC DISTRICT?

Protections afforded by Connecticut's historic district statutes would provide property-owners with ways of prventing construction, demolition, development, and other changes that threaten the architecture and streetscapes that make our neighborhood an area of "unique and irreplaceable value to the community as a whole." Historic district status would require that any changes in properties visible from the street undergo review by the city's Historic District Commission.

The standards applied in determining the "appropriateness" of proposed changes to historic district properties are not arbitrary. They are based on a careful inventory of a district;s historic and architectural resources. A neighborhood like ours, which contains a wide range of styles, would have any unusually broad set of guidelines.

In Connecticut, historic districts can only be created by the affirmative vote of the owners of three-quarters of a district's properties. Accordingly, historic district proposals require broad support. Property-owners retain the right to disestablish historic districts if they find them onerous.

In 1989, Ronan-Edgehill property-owners defeated historic district status, the majority believing that residents could be relied on to maintain the neighborhood's character. Today, with high residential turnover and skyrocketing property values, many who opposed historic district status fifteen years ago are now concerned that subdivision and intensive development of the kind that has occured on Reservoir Street, the corner of Armory Street and Edgehill Road, and on upper Huntington Street, will become increasingly common. With a quarter of the properties in the neighborhood of sufficient size to be subdivided, this is not an unreasonable concern.

Over the past year, an ad hoc committee of the Association has been exploring the historic district option and has recommended the establishment of an official study committee to draft an historic district proposal. The Association's board has unanimously approved this recommendation and has asked the Board of Aldermen to authorize the estblishment of th study committee.

If the city approves the request, the study committee -- made up of neighborhood residents -- will proceed with a study of the neighborhood's historical and architectual resources and will engage in wide-ranging conversations with residents and experts about the nature and extent of the proposed district.

To inform with discussion, the following resources may be of use to residents:

Saint Ronan-Edgehill Historic District (1988). This is the inventory of historic and architectural resources compiled by the New Haven Preservation Trust for historic district proposal defeated in 1989. Although the inventory included nearly every structure in the RS-1 zone comprising the Ronan-Edgehill neighborhood, it omits structures built after 1938 and contains many inaccuracies of fact (particularly with regard to date of construction and ownership). Still, it give a good overview of the area's historical and architectural resouces.

Overview of Historic Districts from the Connecticut Trust for Historic Preservation. This short memorandum from the Connecticut Trust gives a good precis of historic district issues.

State of Connecticut Historic District Statutes. Sections of the state's General Statutes relating to the establishment and administration of historic districts.

Map of Potentially Subdividable Properties in the Ronan-Edgehill neighborhood. This map of the neighborhood, compiled in the spring of 2006, shows lots of sufficient size to be subdivided.

NEIGHBORHOOD HISTORY

For a lavishly illustrated ramble through the history of the neighborhood, go to Ronan-Edgehill History

The Spring 2002 issue of the Journal of the New Haven Colony Historical Society features an article on the history of the East Rock neighborhood which gives considerable attention to Ronan-Edgehill. To see the full text of this article, click "East Rock: Facts, Artifacts, and Memories".

To open this document, you will need Adobe Reader. For free downloads of this application, click this link.

LINKS

For links to other New Haven websites and pages, go to new haven web.

About this Website

This website has been created as a service to the residents of Ronan-Edgehill, North Edgehill, and East Rock neighborhoods, as well as for people interested in the history, politics, and culture of New Haven. The views expressed in the site are entirely those of its creator -- not of the Ronan-Edgehill Neighborhood Association.

This website contains links to information about New Haven and the neighborhoods' history, politics, and culture, to sources of information about the neighborhood and neighborhood issues, and to neighborhood and city institutions. Clicking on links in the text should take you to pertinent sites and pages.

To comment or submit material for inclusion, contact the Webmaster <pd_hall@harvard.edu>