How Three Years of P&Z Review Led to a Bigger, Less Affordable Kimco Proposal

On Monday evening, Nov. 25, the Planning and Zoning Commission is expected to vote on a special permit for the redevelopment of 15-21 River Rd., the final step in Kimco’s long drawn-out effort to replace an aging and largely vacant commercial structure in Wilton Center with two new mixed-use buildings. The following is a look back at how the project evolved over the course of the last three years, as well as the developments at last week’s P&Z meeting that led to a delay in the Commission’s vote.

Where We Started

Kimco submitted initial plans for the project in Fall 2021, proposing two four-story buildings with 158 apartments and 2,300 square feet of ground floor retail space. In this proposal, Kimco was requesting permission to build a multi-family development in a neighborhood — Wilton Center — whose zoning did not then allow it. As part of this request, Kimco included 16 affordable housing units, citing the 10% affordable housing requirement that exists for large-scale residential development in the rest of town.

What Happened Next

Kimco submitted the documents as part of a request for a pre-application hearing, a non-binding dialogue between P&Z and applicants in which the commission can share feedback ahead of a project beginning its formal review timeline. In recent years, the Wilton P&Z pre-application process has ballooned in scope, often holding projects out of public review for a year or longer. This means that by the time projects are opened for public comment, the applicants have gone through multiple rounds of redesign incorporating feedback from the commissioners.

In Kimco’s case, over the course of three years in which the company participated in five pre-application hearings and presented seven different building designs, P&Z also passed the new Wilton Center zoning overlay. Born out of the commission’s 2021­–2023 master plan process, the new overlay allows four-story mixed-use development outright, and opens a pathway to a fifth story for projects that offer “exceptional public benefits.” Kimco itself contributed to the master plan process in its capacity as the largest land owner in the Wilton Center area.

In April 2023, P&Z’s Greater Wilton Center Master Plan Subcommittee invited Kimco to a focused meeting to discuss the zoning needs of the company’s unusually large property in the neighborhood. During this meeting, Kimco’s representatives made a case for the company’s need to build up to five stories.

The Greater Wilton Center Master Plan subcommittee was chaired by P&Z Chair Rick Tomasetti. Two other P&Z Commissioners, Vice Chair Melissa-Jean Rotini and Chris Pagliaro, sat on the subcommittee, along with Sam Gardner (then-vice chair of the Village District Design Advisory Committee and Architectural Review Board), Rick Stow (then-chair of the Inland Wetlands Commission), and local architect Barbara Geddis.

The Kimco pre-application period went on for so long that two current P&Z commissioners — Mark Ahasic and Anthony Cenatiempo — were not present for most of the design iterations. By the time the project was formally submitted earlier this year, the pre-application process had created a project that grew to two five-story buildings with 168 apartments and roughly 10,000 square feet of ground floor retail. Kimco would later agree to withdraw the application and resubmit it without the fifth story on the structure closest to River Rd., known as Building A. However, a fifth story remained on Building B, which sits further back on the site.

The topic of affordable housing did not come up at this stage, either among the Commissioners or with the public. The most recent reference had been Kimco’s assertion in the initial pre-application that it would honor Wilton’s broader 10% affordability target.

Why Was There No Vote?

Unspoken amidst this process was Kimco’s apparent discovery that the intended 10% affordability target for Wilton Center had been inadvertently omitted from the new zoning overlay that was developed by the master plan subcommittee and passed by P&Z last year. The other three zoning overlays created via that same process, which govern development along Danbury Rd., all require 10% affordability.

During P&Z’s Sept. 23 meeting, Chair Rick Tomasetti asked Kimco representatives how many affordable units it was required to build apart from the density bonus. The answer, project engineer Craig Flaherty explained, was none. By all appearances, the company seems to have been the first to spot the omission.

GOOD Morning Wilton later found quotes from several commissioners, including Tomasetti, stating that they had intended to require 10% affordability throughout the neighborhood for any new residential projects. This target would have kept Wilton moving toward the town-wide affordability target that would have exempted it from the state’s 8-30g statute, which allows developers to sidestep local zoning if their projects offer at least 30% affordability.

One Wilton resident did try to bring the matter of affordability — and Kimco’s original willingness to offer 16 affordable units — to the commission’s attention in an email dated Oct. 28. However, due the timing and strict legal process for P&Z to accept public comments, the information could not be shared with the commissioners. The resident’s message to Wrinn, which has been verified by GMW, points to the original 2021 proposal in which Kimco contemplated offering five times as many affordable units as the company now says is feasible. In response to a follow-up on Nov. 12, the resident learned that the information could not be entered as a public comment because the public hearing period had closed on Sept. 28.

By the commission’s Oct. 28 meeting, the commissioners — both those who served on the subcommittee that developed the zoning overlay and those who did not — seemed resigned to approving the project as submitted. Tomasetti instructed Town Planner Michael Wrinn to bring a resolution of approval for both the zone change and special permit that Kimco had requested. But within minutes of the Commission’s latest discussion at the Nov. 13 meeting, it was clear that a straight approval, with five stories on Building B, might not be possible.

Commissioners Ahasic, Eric Fanwick, Ken Hoffman, and Jill Warren all indicated their belief that Kimco had not offered sufficiently “exceptional” public benefits to justify being granted the discretionary fifth story for Building B.

The commission did vote to approve the first application on the project, a request for a zone change that allows Kimco to use the new zoning overlay. But as opposition to the fifth story grew, the commission opted to delay a vote on the project’s special permit until the group’s next meeting on Monday, Nov. 25.

What Are Kimco’s Proposed “Exceptional Public Benefits”

The question comes down to whether the company has incorporated sufficiently meaningful public benefits to the project to be considered “exceptional.” The public benefits Kimco has offered in exchange for the right to build a fifth story are:

• designating three units in the 168-unit complex as affordable housing
• promising to secure LEED Silver certification
• allowing the town or local non-profits to host gatherings on the “Village Drive” side street (roughly where the Starbucks sits on the current site) at least four times per year

Deliberation at the last meeting became tense at times, as commissioners made their case for leaning yea or nay on the project (or at least its fifth story.) Ahasic, Fanwick, and Hoffman each expressed frustration at the small number of affordable apartments — 1.8% of the total units, down from the 10% that the zoning overlay should have required outright, and the 12% target that five-story buildings were meant to offer. Warren spoke more broadly that she didn’t think the overall package of benefits qualified as extraordinary.

“In my opinion, this is a bigger picture than affordable housing,” said Commissioner Chris Pagliaro, who served on the master plan subcommittee. “The reason we went into the master plan was to bring vibrancy into Village Center. This is the goal of it.”

He then continued with a list of positives about the project: “We have mixed use, there’s no requirement for mixed use — they did that for us. They created a side street, which we don’t have in Wilton Center — that’s all part of what took us to that code. They have given the public the civic space, which was an important part of what we wrote — now, how that civic space is used, they’re offering a little more than that. So I think in the big picture, notwithstanding the error that was made with affordable housing, that this project meets the criteria of what the goals are of this community.”  

However, the zoning rules in place in Wilton Center do appear to require mixed use street frontage along the entire River Rd. boundary of the property. Mapped as a large lot FR-1 (Primary Mixed-Use Street Frontage) in the overlay, the ground floor of the property is largely required by the underlying zoning to be a commercial use, and the shape and design of the street-facing frontage is required to take the form of either a pergola, arcade, storefront or professional office.

Requiring mixed-use development would make sense for a zoning overlay whose primary stated purpose is to “encourage new mixed-use infill development and redevelopment to occur within Wilton Center.”

The side street, known by Kimco as “Village Drive” is also mapped on the overlay and designated as FR-3 (Mixed-Use Neighborhood Street Frontage). It is a private, vehicular right-of-way currently in place and home to Wilton Center’s Starbucks, not a feature being created by the new application. What is new as part of the application is that Kimco has offered, as an example of exceptional civic space, to close Village Drive to traffic at least four times a year and allow the town or local non-profits the opportunity to host gatherings there.

This area is distinct from the actual civic space that the project was required to provide, which encompasses the pedestrian promenade along River Rd. and the central public plaza at the corner of River Rd. and Village Drive. These spaces more closely align with the definition of civic space given in the zoning overlay:

Civic Space: Publicly accessible open spaces permanently dedicated to public use, immediately adjacent and contiguous with a Public Frontage. They may be privately or publiclyowned and include but are not limited to parks, courtyards, greens, plazas, pocket parks, playgrounds, outdoor places of celebration, and squares.

The Commission has not directly discussed whether a private right of way that functions as a roadway for cars apart from four special events per year counts as an open space permanently dedicated to public use. Although the examples given suggest a different sort of space, roads are considered by some to be open space. However, Kimco itself never tried to make a case for counting Village Drive toward its required half-acre of civic space as part of the application, suggesting that the company did not expect it would pass muster.  

The last of Kimco’s proposed exceptional public benefits is the company’s agreement to pursue LEED Silver certification, an emblem of sustainable development. Created by the U.S. Green Building Council, the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) ratings measure projects on a scale with a maximum of 110 points. Developments receive different ratings based on how many points they earn: LEED certified (40+ points), LEED Silver (50+ points), LEED Gold (60+ points) or LEED Platinum (80+ points.)

Many cities now require LEED certification at certain levels for municipal construction, including New York and Stamford. The three other zoning overlays created through the Wilton Center master plan process all require LEED Silver certification for any new construction.

The Commission has not explained why a LEED Silver requirement wasn’t included in the Wilton Center overlay as well.

What Will Happen on Monday?

At the conclusion of last week’s meeting, Tomasetti asked Wrinn to bring two resolutions to the Monday, Nov. 25 meeting: one approving Kimco’s special permit for the project as submitted (including a fifth story on Building B), and one approving the project minus the fifth story. Pagliaro cautioned that rejecting the fifth story may mean losing three affordable units that Kimco has offered in exchange for the additional height, as well as the company’s promises of LEED Silver certification and town use of the site’s Village Drive private road.

Wrinn explained that legally, P&Z is required to issue a decision on the special permit application by Nov. 27. Monday’s meeting marks the final opportunity for P&Z to act ahead of this deadline.

The Planning & Zoning Commission will convene at 7 p.m. on zoom. The agenda has been posted.