During Monday’s public hearing on the proposed redevelopment of the former Wilton Baptist Church at 254 Danbury Rd., members of Wilton’s Planning and Zoning Commission (P&Z) and several local residents raised concerns about the developer’s request that P&Z change the zoning regulations to suit specific requirements of the project including a de facto exemption from the affordable housing requirement, which several people argued amounted to impermissible spot zoning.
254 Danbury Road EAT, LLC is proposing to convert the 1850s church into four residential spaces and construct three new buildings on the 1.68-acre site that would each have two residential units, for a total of 10 units. Longtime Wilton resident, architect and Wilton Historical Society trustee William D. Earls purchased the property five years ago following the closure of the church.
The developer is requesting P&Z’s approval for the property to be included in the Danbury Rd. East Overlay District while simultaneously seeking changes to the zone’s 10% affordable housing requirement, its cap on the amount of land that can be disturbed on slopes, and the zone’s floor area ratio (FAR), the ratio of building floor space to total land parcel size — all of which would benefit the proposed redevlopment.
Should the Affordable Housing Requirement be Waived?
Attorney Laura Indellicati of Wofsey Rosen Kweskin & Kuriansky, representing the developer, argued that the exemptions were warranted because of the expensive materials and preservation efforts required to complete the project to a high standard. She noted that the developer is not proposing to eliminate the affordable housing requirement for the project, but rather seeking to make it applicable to developments in the overlay zone with more than 10 residential units — which commissioner Trevor Huffard noted just happens to be one more unit than what the developer is proposing for the Baptist Church site.
“[The zoning regulations and the Plan of Conservation and Development (POCD)] encourage these financial and regulatory incentives to allow these sorts of preservation projects,” Indellicati responded. “So, I think in this circumstance, the preservation effort and the care taken to make it the project that it is … balances out and counteracts the affordability issue.”
Huffard also questioned why an exception should be granted to the zone’s land disturbance limits to allow the excavation of part of the hill behind the church and grading it to a steep slope to allow two residential buildings to be constructed at the same elevation as the other buildings on the site. Ray Janeiro of Down to Earth Consulting explained that the steeper grade is actually allowed by the current zoning regulations, and in fact the Department of Public Works (DPW) requested the developer use the steeper slope during their review of the proposal.
Commissioner Anthony Cenatiempo suggested that town counsel draft an opinion on whether the requested changes represent spot zoning, noting that counsel had recently written an opinion on the subject for another proposal before P&Z — coincidentally, also involving another of Indellicati’s clients. Director of Planning and Land Use Management Michael Wrinn said that town counsel is already working on the opinion and should have it for the next P&Z meeting on Apr. 13.
“If I’m understanding the regulations correctly as they are, this would mean that only one of the 10 units right now would be … set aside for median income housing,” commissioner Jessica Rainey said. “Given the current market, and having nine units sold at current market values, I guess I’m struggling to understand how it wouldn’t be financially feasible to have one at an affordable rate.”
“This development is very unlike other larger apartment developments,” Earls replied. “The cost is totally different than your run-of-the-mill development. … It’s just not like the more generic developments that we’ve seen before. I’m trying to make something very special here. So it’s hard to compare in terms of the cost, but related to those projects [it] is completely different.”
Huffard said that while he thought the redevelopment was a great project, he questioned whether adaptive reuse of historic properties and the use of high-quality materials should be taken into account when deciding whether to exempt a project from the affordable housing requirement.
“The POCD is very strong on affordable housing. Many of us ran on affordable housing issues. So how are we supposed to just exclude this property versus other properties that are not going to be, quote, ‘run-of-the-mill?'” Huffard asked.
Responding to the commissioners’ concerns over the requested zoning changes, Earls explained that he purchased the property to preserve the church from potential demolition by a commercial developer that had approached the congregation with an offer.
“It may not [have been] the most practical business decision, but I believe in adaptive reuse,” Earls said. “I hope to make it a truly a plus to the community.”
Public Comments Focus on Spot Zoning, Affordable Housing
Robert Jewell, an attorney representing Patrick Downend, a developer who owns the adjacent property at 250 Danbury Rd., said that while he had no objection to the proposed redevelopment itself, he did object to the exceptions applying solely to the Wilton Baptist Church property and not to any other properties in the overlay zone as well.
“I raised the spot zone reluctantly because, as we know, in Connecticut jurisprudence the spot zone has kind of fallen out of fashion,” Jewell said. “But when people talk about spot zoning, this would be exactly the type of application they’d be talking about.”
Jack Rubino, an attorney representing Justin Anderson, the owner of another adjacent property, argued that reaching the 10% threshold for affordable housing is a “core interest” for Wilton and he failed to see how excepting this project from that requirement was consistent with the goals of the POCD, which, he reminded the commissioners, is advisory, not mandatory. Furthermore, the 1.6-acre lot fell well below the size threshold for spot zoning. He also believes the developer has not adequately responded to concerns about how the new retaining wall and drainage pattern from the excavation would affect his client’s property.
Wilton resident Barbara Geddis said that, although “this is about the most fitting solution I’ve seen [for] an abandoned adaptive reuse property in all the years I’ve been here,” she encouraged the developer to investigate alternatives that would not require rewriting the regulations for the overlay zone.
“As a general principle … the gold standard in land use law is when you have to ask for something, you ask for the smallest and fewest text amendments possible,” Geddis said.
Downend, the owner of 250 Danbury Rd., wrapped up the public comments by noting that, while he agreed with others about the “the concept and the artfulness” of the proposed redevelopment, there are other properties in the overlay zone that would also benefit from the same exceptions being requested for the church parcel.
“If you wanna try to preserve the historic structures in the [overlay zones], then those incentives should be shared among those lots,” Downend said.
In her rebuttal remarks, Indellicati argued that a zoning text amendment is not evaluated on the number of properties impacted, but rather on whether “it is uniform on its face, which this one is.”
“The argument isn’t that the preservation of this structure doesn’t serve the community,” Indellicati said. “The argument is that I want it to apply to other properties in different ways, but that is not something that defeats the proof that this is consistent with the comprehensive plan.”
The public hearing will remain open until Apr. 13 to allow the commissioners and the public to comment on the town counsel’s forthcoming opinion on the spot zoning question.
P&Z Approves Consultant Requests, Gears Up for Housing Discussions
During the work session that followed the public hearings and discussions, the commissioners discussed the Planning Department’s efforts to hire planning consultants to work on two key projects. First, they reviewed and approved a new request for proposals (RFP) for a consultant to update the town’s zoning regulations. This is the second RFP issued by the town; the first one did not specify a budget cap, leading to requests ranging from $90,000 to over $170,000. The new RFP sets out a maximum budget of $120,000.
The commissioners also reviewed and approved a request for quotations (RFQ) for a traffic consultant to review the town’s traffic and parking regulations. Wrinn explained that the impetus behind this review is the proposed redevelopment of the School Sisters of Notre Dame property at 329-331-345 Belden Hill Rd. currently before the Inland Wetlands Commission (IWC).
Wrinn reported that he recently participated in a meeting with other town managers to discuss the impending changes to local housing regulations to meet the requirements of Special Session Public Act No. 25-1, An Act Concerning Housing Growth. Wrinn explained that towns will be required to create the equivalent of a checklist to identify how they are addressing issues such as traffic mitigation and parking, mixed-use development, commercial zones, setbacks and other issues. He noted that every town is approaching it differently, with some opting to have planning staff develop the criteria and others asking their P&Z commissions to handle that task. Wrinn said that his staff is working with planning staff in other towns to share ideas and approaches to help with consistency. Wrinn said he plans to have a draft for P&Z to review by the end of April.
Lastly, Wrinn confirmed with the commissioners that P&Z will hold a special meeting on Wednesday, Apr. 15 to discuss how P&Z plans to address the state’s new affordable housing requirements. As GOOD Morning Wilton previously reported, under the state’s 8-30g affordable housing statute, a municipality is granted its certificate of affordable housing completion when its “housing unit-equivalent points” equals 2% of total dwelling units, with a minimum of 75 points. With approximately 6,200 dwelling units, Wilton would require roughly 124 points to earn the certification.