In a special meeting on Thursday, Sept. 28, the subcommittee charged with designing a new master plan for Wilton Center presented the draft plan and two sets of regulatory changes to the full Planning and Zoning Commission. Rick Tomasetti, Chair of both P&Z and the subcommittee opened the meeting by explaining the history that led to this moment.
The idea for a master plan for Wilton Center comes out of the 2019 Plan for Conservation and Development, specifically community discussions about the need for a diversity of housing beyond 1-2 acre single-family homes and the need to reinvigorate downtown.
Tomasetti noted that the make-up of households has changed significantly since the 1960s and 1970s when many Wilton regulations were written and that there is a growing need for housing types beyond the traditional suburban house. Citing ASML in particular, he emphasized the need to make Wilton attractive to residents and employers alike.
“Wilton is a great town,” Tomasetti said. “We need people to feel like Wilton is a good investment.”
He praised the Subcommittee members for never devolving into political argument and instead focusing on “the betterment of the town.” Subcommittee member and Vice Chair of the Architectural Review Board/Village District Design Advisory Committee Sam Gardner would later applaud Tomasetti for his leadership throughout the process.
“We were a herd of cats with a lot of opinions and he wrangled us,” Gardner said.
A Sobering Look at the Status Quo
After that upbeat start however, the subcommittee members did not mince words when describing their view of the current state of Wilton and its downtown.
“I’m not going to say Wilton is broken but we have a lot of issues,” Tomasetti said towards the end of his opening remarks. He would later add that a friend told him, “The problem with Wilton is it doesn’t have any soul — there’s no soul to our downtown.”
Later in the evening, subcommittee member Barbara Geddis opened by stating that she wanted to “raise the mood of the group and be more inspiring” even though “I know we all look a little morose.” She then went on to share that when she moved to Wilton five years ago, she ran into a couple while walking in Southport who told her, “We just left Wilton because it’s so morose.”
Describing conversations with potential clients leaving New York City for the Connecticut suburbs during COVID, P&Z Commissioner and Subcommittee member Chris Pagliaro recounted hearing, “There’s nothing of interest in that town — no beach, no golf course, no great parks, no direct train line.”
However, he said, they told him if Wilton had a more vibrant downtown, “we certainly would have considered it.”
A Vision for a Better Wilton Center, but How to Get There?
Despite the tone of these comments, the Subcommittee members each spoke enthusiastically about the proposed regulatory changes and the impact they could have on the town.
In talking about that vision for a more vibrant downtown, Pagliaro offered the example of New Canaan as a downtown designed to encourage pedestrian traffic. The lack of available parking in front of places like bookstores leads shoppers to pay to park in municipal lots off the main street and then walk through alleys and past other shops to reach their destination.
“You pass six stores en route to the bookstore and you end up going in there and buying things you never set out to buy,” he said positively.
Although he clarified that, “we’re not trying to be this,” he contrasted New Canaan’s active sidewalks with Wilton, where zoning that prioritized on-site parking allows visitors to park directly in front of shops and restaurants rather than walk to a destination. The early closing times of Wilton restaurants, due in part to a lack of customer base in the town center at night, is one way this lack of pedestrian street life impacts the town.
“How many of us have been in a restaurant where they close at 7 p.m. because there’s only seven people in the restaurant?” Tomasetti asked. “Yet you go to our peer communities and on a Monday night, you can’t get a table.”
Summing up the group’s hopes for the downtown, Geddis said, “Wilton will not be a city that never sleeps but maybe it could be a town that is still open at 11 p.m.!”
During the formal presentation, Frank Fish (Principal at BFJ Planning, the firm contracted for the master plan process) laid out an ambitious scope for the project. Some of the priorities, such as diversifying the shape and design of buildings and making it easier to build housing in Wilton Center, are within the scope of the zoning changes being proposed.
However, as P&Z Commissioner Ken Hoffman would later point out, several of the more ambitious elements outlined in the master plan have little relationship to the proposed new zoning changes, which simply offer design alternatives and incentives for developers of individual, privately owned lots downtown.
Listed among the goals of the new zoning overlay in Fish’s presentation was the creation of a Riverwalk and greater access to the Norwalk River and Schenck’s Island. BFJ’s renderings of the future of Wilton Center incorporated significant changes to the public realm, such as an expanded town square, new and better-connected sidewalk paths, a pedestrian bridge across the railroad tracks to connect to Danbury Rd., and changes to the challenging intersection at the entrance to Wilton Center from Ridgefield Rd.
“Some of those things have been proposed before and we’re not there,” Hoffman said, citing the Riverwalk, Town Square, and bridge in particular. “How do we actually get to that vision?”
Proposed Pedestrian Circulation plan for Wilton Center with New Town Square Credit: Draft report of Wilton Center Master Plan (Sept. 27, 2023) 
Alternative ideas for new town square Credit: Draft report of Wilton Center Master Plan (Sept. 27, 2023) 
Ideas for new town square Credit: Draft report of Wilton Center Master Plan (Sept. 27, 2023) 
ideas for coordinated signage with community identity Credit: Draft report of Wilton Center Master Plan (Sept. 27, 2023) 
A rendering of possible painted highway entrance to Wilton center from Danbury Rd. Credit: Draft report of Wilton Center Master Plan (Sept. 27, 2023)
Taking the Riverwalk as an example, Tomasetti explained that the Town only owns some of the land that would be involved, such as Schenk’s Island and the Norwalk River Valley Trail. However, he noted that property owners along the river would have to commit to developing their section of the Riverwalk in order to access the new development opportunities being proposed.
Hoffman pressed further, proposing that a public-private partnership to enact some of these changes should be incorporated into the master plan.
“We had a much bolder vision than we were allowed to put in here,” Geddis clarified, citing public-private partnerships as one element that could not be incorporated in this proposal. “But we have to start somewhere.”
Gardner then weighed in, proposing that the Subcommittee add an introductory statement to the master plan explaining some of this broader context.
“We started with big ideas for the town but what we’ve produced is a technical document,” he said. “As we got into the details, maybe we lost the vision.”
A Few Final Tweaks
Before proceeding to a vote, the Commission and subcommittee revisited a topic that has captured much of the public attention around the master plan: the creation of a fifth-story bonus that offers developers an additional floor — with a smaller footprint, set back from the street front — in exchange for incorporating public benefits like increased affordable housing, preservation of historic structures, or sustainable design.
The newest member of the Commission, Mark Ahasic, first broached the topic.
“Candidly, four and five stories seems out of character for what Wilton Center is,” he said, posing whether horizontal rather than vertical growth could achieve the same density goals.
Tomasetti and others clarified that the fifth story would not create a five-story tall wall at the street. Instead, the bonus floor space is set back from the road and limited to 25-50% of the underlying square footage. Pagliaro suggested that greater building heights will also make Wilton Center more visible and identifiable to people driving by.
Ahasic also questioned the real building height depicted in a rendering of a lot along the Norwalk River, which appears to show six stories. Tomasetti explained that the first floor, used as parking, is not buildable land due to the floodplain. The average grade, he explained, is determined by the street-facing side of the building and the ground level in place there.
In response to Ahasic’s comments, Tomasetti requested a language change to indicate that the fifth-story bonus is effectively a parapet, not a full floor. This, along with other minor language changes, will be incorporated ahead of the planned public hearing.
Speaking of the hearing, the clock is ticking for the Commission to get the master plan and regulatory changes approved.
“Are we going to have this done before the new board takes its seat?” asked Commissioner Eric Fanwick, seeming to allude to the Commission transition come December after the town elections.
“That’s the goal,” Tomasetti replied.
Looking Ahead
The Commission voted unanimously to send the draft master plan and proposed zoning changes to a public hearing, which will be held on Thursday, Oct. 19.
Ahead of that date, GOOD Morning Wilton will run a three-part series explaining the master plan and the zoning changes proposed for both Wilton Center and nearby Danbury Rd. Since the master plan process kicked off in 2021, GMW has covered the subcommittee’s discussions, the findings of the consultants, and the reactions of area property owners and developers across more than 20 articles that are available as references.
This public hearing will be the final opportunity for Wilton residents to weigh in on the proposals before P&Z votes on them. There was one prior public hearing held 18 months ago on Thursday, Mar. 31, 2022.
I think a lot of people in Wilton make the mistake of expecting our downtown to be something that, realistically, it probably can’t be; namely, a shopping / dining / entertainment destination for people from neighboring towns.
What Wilton Center is very good for – in fact, in this regard it easily stands up to New Canaan or Darien or Ridgefield – is day-to-day resident needs; it’s a compact, convenient, walkable collection of grocery stores and coffee shops and banks and child care facilities and fitness facilities and restaurants, with a train station. Most Wilton residents have little need to go anywhere else for their everyday needs, and for anyone within walking / biking distance of Wilton Center, it’s entirely possible to carry out your day-to-day life without needing a car at all, which is not a claim I could make for any location at all in, say, Westport or Weston.
If we embrace that Wilton Center is, basically, a wonderful amenity for Wilton residents, don’t try to make it be much more than that, and focus most of our planning efforts on keeping it all modest and convenient and walkable while adding more housing within that walking/biking bubble, I think we’ll have much less cause for morosity + a better sense of what we want it to look like going forward.
How is this new “town square” idea even doable? Unless I’m mistaken, multiple landlords own those buildings in the diagramed area. Have they all given their blessing for this plan? (How) Are they being compensated? Have they agreed to sell? Has the town even approached them with these ideas? How much would either of these new Town Square wishes cost? Who’s going to foot the bill(s)? How long would the Center be under construction?? And how disruptive would/will it be, especially with Kimco demolishing the campus next to the Stop & Shop plaza and constructing another condo/apartment complex in the coming years?
Frankly, I don’t see how this town square plan is going to convince people to move here, want to spend more time/money here or give the town a known/attractive identity. It’s just re-arranging chairs in a room. It does absolutely nothing to make Wilton a more-appealing destination for people to visit. (I think the idea of more, and expanded, sidewalks and pedestrian bridges is great, however.) Despite the few who move away due to “morose-ness,” there’s clearly no shortage of demand for housing here, so those anecdotes don’t really hold up, in my opinion.
Also, people need to remember some things: This “plan” is not legally binding in any way. It’s simply a very expensive wish list we create every few years that never results in any real action. How much did this one cost? Finally, anything to do with Rt 7 has to ultimately be approved by the state, so there’s another layer of red tape and delays.
Where are the fun and exciting events, festivals or other cultural ideas? What about an annual jazz fest with big names? Or food/food truck festival? The town has plenty of open space for an endless array of ideas to work with.
Having moved here from a small town much like Weston, I delight in Wilton’s town center. I can pretty much find whatever I want or need from groceries to clothing to gifts. I don’t need Wilton to be like New Canaan or Ridgefield but I would like to see any further building be held to a high and respectful design standard. Not just square boxes.
However, I wish that Wilton could acquire the former convent on Belden Hill and in time utilize that space much like Waveny Park in New Canaan. I think that would truly add value to the town and help to alleviate some moroseness.
I’ve lived in Wilton for over 30 years. When we first came here nothing was open at night except for take out from Happy Wok. The town was pretty much dark at sundown. Since then there’s been a lot of growth to revitalize our downtown and I feel we’re going in the right direction looking for ways to expand housing options and pedestrian-safe features.
The town has a big opportunity to create diverse living spaces for the employees at our growing Wilton Corporate Park and ASML on the southern end of town. Creating transportation corridors and pedestrian conduits like the NRVT and sidewalks along Route 7 to connect Wilton town center with South Wilton businesses would do much to encourage those employees to consider Wilton as a good place to live. ASML, for one, is actively recruiting new employees and we should take this opportunity to expand downtown residence options to accommodate this potential beneficial growth.