Draft 15-year plan offers vision of a happier, healthier and wealthier Hartford by its 400th birthday

Hartford’s draft 15-year-plan, released Monday, details a path to a more sustainable, equitable and vibrant region by 2035, the city’s 400th anniversary.

Divided into five parts, the road map for the next chapter of Hartford’s history offers numerous recommendations for economic development, housing and business initiatives, sustainability, parks improvements, and investments in the arts and culture.

Their common thread is a recognition that Hartford is not where it should be. Challenged by poverty, blight, crime, struggling schools, environmental hazards and public health crises, it needs a holistic approach to build up all of the city’s assets, from the riverfront and restaurants downtown to wellness centers and schools.

"Hartford still suffers from the effects of past policies, such as redlining, educational disinvestment, and destructive urban renewal. These policies perpetuated racial and economic segregation. Many of our residents feel locked out of opportunity,” the plan reads. “Now is the time to act. We can change our trajectory if we think together, work together, and act together.”

The planning and zoning commission used nearly 900 survey responses and in-person feedback from 1,100 people to develop the draft, which will succeed the conservation and development strategy Hartford adopted in January 2010, called “One City, One Plan."

At 71 pages, the draft is a quarter the size of the One City, One Plan. That’s by design, planning and zoning commission chair Sara Bronin says, to make the new plan less unwieldy, just as detailed and much more focused and organized.

“We really tried to distill it,” said Bronin, whose husband is Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin. “Overall, it seemed like many people felt the most important thing was a radically improved sense of community well being. We’re talking about higher life satisfaction, happiness and quality of life."

The plan is divided into five parts: Green, as in Hartford’s natural assets and sustainability; Grow, as in business and development; Live, quality of life; Move, transportation; and Play, tourism and culture.

Each of the five areas of focus includes two main recommendations for the next decade, such as revitalizing the Connecticut Riverfront and carrying out key developments in areas of the city that have seen less investment. The plan also challenges Hartford to eliminate slumlords, expand regional public transit, and complete the city’s parks plan.

Some of the goals are particularly lofty. By 2030, the plan states, Hartford should reduce gun violence by half, become the live music capital of Connecticut, and complete 10 major development projects, including transforming three sections of the North End -- Albany Avenue, the Main Street corridor in Northwest Hartford, and Keney Park.

Given the city’s budgetary constraints, and the complexity of some of the plans, it will take a group effort to carry them out, Bronin said. Certain initiatives will be led or supported by individual advocates, private institutions, businesses, and state and federal lawmakers.

“We see this as a plan where everyone’s working together," Bronin said. "The onus is not just on the city of Hartford as a municipal entity to achieve everything in this plan because it would be impossible.”

There are small-scale ideas, like planting fruit and nut trees in front yards and installing signs and markers on Hartford history.

Others will be costly, such as modernizing the XL Center, relocating Union Station and the South Hartford trash incinerator, and overhauling the I-84/I-91 interchange.

The draft also establishes specific goals around quality of life. By 2035, it says Hartford must build a North End wellness center, convert 2,500 employees of anchor institutions to residents, increase home ownership by 50 percent, build 5,000 new housing units, and cut chronic absenteeism in half, among other plans.

The plan’s authors balanced those serious needs with recommendations meant to capitalize on Hartford’s greatest strength, which the public identified as arts and culture.

Recommendations include reinvigorating the Artists’ Collective, a North End institution that teaches the arts and culture of the African Diaspora, and creating a relocation program for artists priced out of nearby large cities. The plan also calls for at least three dog parks, and reviewing a proposal to create a botanical garden in Colt Park.

The city planning process must take place at least every 10 years per state law. Sara Bronin was appointed to the commission in 2013 and named chair in 2014, before Luke Bronin took office in 2016. Her term expired more than two years ago, but per city charter, members of the commission may serve until they are replaced or removed.

While this next 10-year plan will only take Hartford to 2030, it dovetails with preparations for another milestone, Hartford’s 400th birthday in 2035.

The planning and zoning commission used that lens to envision where Hartford should be in 15 years. Last spring, the city group formed a partnership with Hartford 400, an initiative undertaken by iQuilt, an arts and culture initiative downtown.

“We will have to do this again in 10 years but hope it will be an update to say, ‘Now we’re only 5 years away from Hartford’s anniversary. What have we done and what can we achieve in the next 5 years?’” Bronin said.

The Hartford City Plan is now the first element of Hartford 400.

Residents can provide feedback on the plan online at hartford2035.org, and attend public listening sessions on specific parts of the plan:

Green400 - March 2, 6:30-8 pm: EcoSpace, 224 Farmington Avenue

Play400 - March 9, 6:150-8 pm: Parkville Market, 1400 Park Street

Live400 - March 17, 5:30-7 pm: CREC Central, Rooms 101 & 102 111 Charter Oak Avenue

Move400 - March 18, 11 am-12:30 pm: Capitol Region Coalition of Governments, 241 Main Street

Grow400 - March 23, 6:30-8 pm: ReSet, 1429 Park Street

A general listening session is scheduled for March 30, 6-8 p.m., at Saint Francis Hospital, Conference Room A, 95 Woodland Street.

A public hearing will be held during the regular planning and zoning commission meeting on May 12 at 6 pm, in the plaza level conference room at 260 Constitution Plaza. Attendees may sign up to speak.

Hartford City Council and the Capital Region Council of Governments will review the plan and offer feedback. The plan does not require outside approval.

The commission could vote to adopt the plan as early as May 12.

Rebecca Lurye can be reached at [email protected].

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