Kimco was back once again at the Monday, Sept. 9 meeting of the Planning and Zoning Commission, with a new look for its planned redevelopment of 19-21 River Rd. into a 4-5 story, 168-unit residential/commercial complex with ground-level retail. After initially being presented last spring, the project was withdrawn by Kimco in July. The announcement came amid a flurry of last-minute design critiques and concerns about how the Commission’s summer meeting calendar would affect the application’s legal timeline. This new application picks up where the last one left off, with some architectural and site plan changes that engineer Craig Flaherty framed as a response to feedback from the Commission and the public.
Last week, the company previewed these updates to the proposal at a meeting of the Village District Design Advisory Committee, which included eliminating the fifth-story lofted space, creating a larger public plaza, turning a planned bike room at street level into a coworking space, and abandoning an unpopular street-facing frosted glass element.
The public comment period has not actually begun of course. P&Z’s policies do not allow public comment to be made in public hearings until the applicant has finished all presentations and answered any questions from the commissioners. The public input Flaherty referred to only included emails sent to P&Z over the last few months when public comment was not permitted in meetings. During the July 23 meeting, Commissioner Mark Ahasic attempted to read from some of these public letters and was silenced by Chair Rick Tomasetti and Vice Chair Melissa-Jean Rotini.
As noted in GMW‘s prior coverage, Kimco has stopped providing renderings with a full roofline view of the proposed River Rd. building as of this submission. Instead, all renderings are cropped below the roofline.
Kimco Pushes Back on Architectural Critiques
Regarding critiques of the project’s architecture, a common theme in emails the Commission received from the public, Flaherty referred to the new Overlay Zoning passed by P&Z last fall, which states that “there is no one dominant architectural style in Wilton Center” and that rather, “historicism” should be avoided.
“It never says, ‘We want to stick with a predominantly New England colonial style,’” he added, referring to the zoning overlay.
For context, the full text of that section of the zoning overlay (page 45) is as follows:
“During the development of the Greater Wilton Center Area Master Plan, the Wilton Master Plan Subcommittee observed that there is no one dominant architectural style in Wilton Center, rather Wilton’s architectural essence is simplicity and clarity. Buildings in the Wilton Center Overlay District should therefore seek to contribute positively to the public realm and relate to the context and fabric of existing places in the Town of Wilton. The size, mix proportion, and form of buildings should emulate the heritage character of traditional Connecticut downtown areas while avoiding historicism or gratuitous replication. All buildings should have vertical and horizontal modulation and articulation reflecting the traditional streetscape building spacing and dimensional variations of typical walkable downtowns.”
The code then outlines building and design elements intended to encourage this type of development.
What Questions Remain Open?
Town Planner Michael Wrinn and project attorney Casey Healy gave a summary of where the project stands in its various approval processes.
- VDDAC is expected to submit a favorable report to P&Z in the coming days reflecting the discussion it had last week.
- The Inland Wetlands Commission, Department of Public Works, Water Pollution Control Authority, and Fire Marshal and Fire Chief have all signed off on it.
- One outstanding element is a peer-reviewed traffic study that P&Z required at the urging of the town’s traffic authority, the Wilton Police Department. A letter from the peer review firm signing off on the project is outstanding but is expected to be available shortly. Healy later noted that if the letter included any details that led the traffic authority to request further changes, “whatever it asked us to do, we would do it.”
Kimco did outline two waivers it is seeking for the project. One would allow the project to use granite block curbs only on street-facing areas of the site and concrete block on the back building’s curbs. The second would allow it to skirt a requirement in the new zoning code about façade articulation. Under the new Wilton Center zoning overlay, facades are required to include articulation (either a change to depth or height of the building wall) every 60 feet, for at least 15 feet. The goal of a requirement like this is to avoid a monolithic street wall at the sidewalk level.
Kimco has opted for vertical articulation but according to code, would have been required to vary the façade heights by four feet; they are asking for permission to make only a two-foot change in vertical height. As Kimco has designed the building, having the front facade articulate up four feet periodically would cover the current location of the fourth-story windows.
In the ensuing discussion, only a few commissioners had further questions. Commissioner Anthony Cenatiempo asked to review a document outlining how the project complies with the new zoning overlay. Kimco thought the document had been included in the application files online, but Cenatiempo said he had not seen them and GOOD Morning Wilton could not find them posted online either. Rotini asked for more details on public events that will be permitted on the site, which Healy promised to work out with Wrinn as part of the special permit requirements. Tomasetti pushed back on the use of artificial siding on portions of the building, which is explicitly discouraged in the zoning overlay.
Looking Ahead
In an exchange at the outset of the meeting, Tomasetti and Wrinn pointed to the following meeting on Monday, Sept. 23, as the one where public comment would likely be heard. The meeting will be held on Zoom and begin at 7 p.m. The Commission could choose to deliberate and vote on the project later that night.
Monday’s meeting was the fifth time a “public hearing” for the project appeared on P&Z’s agenda since March without the public being allowed to comment. Including pre-application hearings, it was the 10th such discussion. The renderings presented this week are at least the seventh design iteration since discussions began in December 2021.
“This is a sign that the public review process is working and the form-based code is working,” Flaherty said, wrapping up what the company surely hopes is its final presentation of the project.