Key Points:
- Wilton’s ARB/VDDAC unanimously favored two townhouse proposals totaling 14 units on small Wilton Center parcels.
- Revised plans for 255 Danbury Rd. reduce the project from 12 units to nine, allowing wider homes, larger porches and two-car garages.
- The five-unit Old Ridgefield Rd. proposal adds landscaping and a pocket park intended to provide public space and improve pedestrian connections.
Why It Matters: The projects offer an early test of how Wilton Center’s plans for more housing can be balanced with traditional architecture, appropriate scale, public space and walkability.
Wilton’s Architectural Review Board and Village District Design Advisory Committee (ARB/VDDAC) issued unanimous favorable reviews of two townhouse developments proposed for small lots in Wilton Center that more closely reflect the ARB’s original vision for the Wilton Center Area Master Plan.
Both proposals reviewed during the ARB’s Sept. 3 meeting — nine units planned for 255 Danbury Rd. and five units proposed for 20 Old Ridgefield Rd. — feature three-story townhomes designed to appear two stories tall, with the third floor camouflaged by mansard or gabled roofs with dormers. Both designs feature stepped rooflines and include elements of traditional New England architecture such as clapboard and brick facades, and are intended to be pedestrian friendly.
As these two projects continue on to Wilton’s Planning and Zoning Commission (P&Z), their smaller-scale designs will stand in stark contrast to the proposed Phase II redevelopment of Kimco’s Wilton Campus located not too far away, representing the range — and potentially conflicting — approaches to development in Wilton that P&Z has struggled to reconcile.
“Much More Gracious:” 255 Danbury Rd. Scales Down
Following its previous appearance before the ARB, TBS Partners LLC, the developer of 255 Danbury Rd. reduced the number of units on the one-acre site from 12 to nine over the same footprint. The change allowed all units to be widened enough to accommodate two-car garages and three bedrooms instead of limiting those features to the units on either end.
The design now features a low, landscaped retaining wall separating the front patios that face Danbury Rd., as the ARB suggested during its previous review, as well as a picket fence. Physical separation from the busy road will also be enhanced by a public sidewalk outside the wall and fence as well as an inner sidewalk on the other side for residents.
The porches, designed to resemble front entrances to “give a more residential scale” to the buildings according to project architect Salvatore Talamo, have also been widened.
“As we went to nine [units], the units got wider, and they’re much more gracious,” Talamo explained. “The porches got wider and more realistic,” more closely resembling a New England row house.
“I think some of the elements that have been introduced architecturally are … very responsive to what we said and I think they’re quite successful,” ARB member Jan Hilgeman said. She also praised the overall aesthetic improvement of having fewer and wider units.
Though the ARB had suggested a different color palate that varied for each unit, Talamo said that the updated design uses two alternating colors to create a unified look and reinforce the sense of a single development.
ARB member Kathy Poirier praised the design’s attention to details, including horizontal elements added to some of the gables on the front and sides to break up the clapboard siding.
“I think there’s a lot of detail that you didn’t necessarily have to do and I appreciate that you did it,” Poirier said. “It looks like it’s well developed and very classical New England architecture.”
Project attorney Liz Suchy said TBS Partners will apply for a zone change to include the property in the Danbury Road West Overlay District.
GOOD Morning Wilton reached out to the Town to ask whether the reduction in the number of units in the project is expected to result in a corresponding reduction in its estimated sewer flow. GMW did not receive a response by press time and will update the story if one is provided.
“Appropriately Scaled:” 20 Old Ridgefield Rd. Adds Pocket Park
The architectural design of the five-unit development planned for a small triangular parcel near the intersection of Old Ridgefield Rd. and Ridgefield Rd. remained largely unchanged since the pre-application review conducted by the Village District Design Advisory Committee (VDDAC) last December. However, the plan for the surrounding parcel has been refined with additional trees and a pocket park designed by landscape architect Kate Throckmorton.
“Our goal was to create a residential model that’s very appealing and supports pedestrianism and connectivity to the Village Center,” Heather Mroz of M&M Constructions, who along with her husband Marek owns the property, said. “These townhomes were designed to consciously align with the goals of the Wilton Center Master Plan, and they prioritize sensitivity to context and scale creation of public space, pedestrian connectivity, and exemplifying a housing type we feel is sorely needed in Wilton Center.”
The buildings now feature short porch roofs over the living room windows and uniform gables, and low iron fences to set off the front patios. Heather Mroz said that the goal is for people to feel like they are looking at two-story single- family homes.
Marek Mroz said the facades will combine whitewashed red brick and white clapboard to resemble other nearby buildings in Wilton Center, and the builders will use shingles on the mansard roofs that resemble slate with faux-copper gutters and leaders, to give the buildings a more formal appearance.
ARB/VDDAC Chair Kevin Quinlan pointed out that although the Wilton Center code allows buildings of four stories up to 48 feet, the proposed design calls for three-story buildings measuring 36 feet.
“I think it does adhere nicely to the form-based code,” Quinlan said. “I just feel like it should be mentioned that the scale of it is restrained and I think you’re successful in being appropriately scaled.”
Throckmorton said her plan for the pocket park on the western corner of the property includes a walkway to invite people in from to the eight-foot-wide public sidewalk that would connect the development to Wilton Center. The center of the park would include benches and grass, with evergreen trees along its edges to provide a sense of separation from the road.
The applicant would install a row of streetlights along the Old Ridgefield Rd. side of the park to further separate it from the street.
“I think it looks very inviting,” Poirier said. “I’m going to go sit there.”
“That’s my goal,” Throckmorton replied.
Engineer Thomas Nelson explained that the site will be graded so that runoff would flow into a catch basin and then to a large underground retention system designed to reduce peak runoff. Quinlan praised the system as an “excellent solution.”
Assistant Town Planner Daphne White explained that Planning and Zoning Department staff will review the application to ensure it meets the requirements of the Wilton Center overlay, including its provisions for civic space. White said the pocket park would hopefully satisfy that requirement.
“I think that the park is a very civic gesture and, in my opinion, would absolutely qualify for checking the box of something for the public,” Quinlan said.
Proposals Will Head to P&Z
Following unanimous votes to issue favorable reviews of both proposals (ARB/VDDAC Vice-Chair John Doyle was absent), the projects will now move forward to P&Z for public hearings.
Director of Planning and Land Use Management Michael Wrinn discussed the 20 Old Ridgefield Rd. project with P&Z commissioners in July, shortly before P&Z’s summer break, but the 255 Danbury Rd. project has not yet come up during the commission’s discussions.
P&Z’s next session is scheduled for Monday, Sept. 14, and is expected to include public hearings on Kimco’s Wilton Center Phase II project and a review of the ARB’s proposed edits to the new transit oriented middle housing chapter of the zoning regulations.
