Key Points:
- P&Z approved restaurant space at 33 Danbury Road, but the proposed elevator and stairwell remain unresolved.
- Commissioners adopted conditions for a landscaping storage facility and approved a medical office sign package intended to help patients find its entrance.
- Three commissioners volunteered to help guide Wilton’s zoning rewrite, with a resident’s participation subject to BOS approval.
Why it Matters: These decisions shape business uses and access along Danbury Road while Wilton prepares to update the zoning rules governing future development.
During a brisk meeting on Nov. 9, Wilton’s Planning and Zoning Commission (P&Z) dotted the i’s and crossed the t’s on two applications for businesses along Danbury Rd., proposed a solution to a thorny signage visibility issue for a popular health care institution and agreed to form a subcommittee to work with the consultants who are rewriting the town’s zoning regulations.
33 Danbury Rd. Mixed-Use Renovation Gets Partial Approval
Following up on their discussion during their Oct. 26 meeting the commissioners voted unanimously to approve a resolution that allowed developer CHEL Associates LLC to proceed with redeveloping the two ground-floor spaces of the two-story building at 33 Danbury Rd. into restaurants. However, P&Z also denied CHEL’s request to be allowed to count the floor space of a demolished building toward the construction of a new exterior elevator and stairwell that would provide access to six proposed second-floor residential units.
The decision rejects CHEL’s argument that floor space from the demolished house could be counted toward the proposed addition for the purposes of calculating the floor area ratio (FAR), or the ratio of a building’s floor space to the property’s total size. The matter came down to dueling interpretations of what the zoning regulations did and didn’t allow, with town counsel arguing that it did not allow CHEL to apply the floor space of a house that had been torn down in 2024 toward the floor space of the other, still-existing, building.
During the public hearing and subsequent discussion, several commissioners had expressed concerns that granting CHEL’s request would set a precedent that would allow developers to claim the square footage of demolished buildings when proposing new construction as a way to bypass FAR limits.
Director of Planning and Land Use Management Michael Wrinn noted that CHEL was returning to the Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA) to ask it to grant a variance that would allow it to build the external elevator and stairwell. CHEL has already tried once before — unsuccessfully — to obtain a variance from ZBA.
The resolution does not prevent CHEL from returning to P&Z in the future with a proposal to develop the second floor, should it succeed in obtaining the variance or if it finds an alternative that does not increase the square footage of the building, such as putting the elevator and staircase inside the existing structure.
The commissioners also agreed with Wrinn’s suggestion to delete a paragraph in the resolution that would have allowed CHEL the option to build a new structure on the footprint of the demolished house. Wrinn explained that doing so would reduce the already limited amount of parking on the small parcel and would present other problems because that area of the lot is within a flood zone.
“It is a complexity that we don’t need at this point in time,” Wrinn said.
655 Danbury Rd. Landscape Business Storage Yard Resolution Approved
Having already voted to approve an application by James Ferrone Landscaping, Inc. to convert a former car dealership at 655 Danbury Rd. into a storage facility for its fleet of maintenance vehicles and equipment, P&Z swiftly and unanimously approved the resolution submitted by Wrinn.
No structural changes to the building are planned. New parking space stripes will be restriped on the parking lot and a fence will be added in the back to shield stored equipment from view.
The resolution includes language prohibiting vehicle maintenance, bulk storage of fertilizer or herbicides or washing of chemical spray trucks or equipment on site. During the public hearing, a resident had raised concerns about the risks of contamination caused by washing the sprayer trucks. James Ferrone assured the resident and the commissioners that no cleaning would be performed on site.
The family-owned business will be relocating from Westport to Wilton when the work is complete.
50 Danbury Rd.: A Clearer Sign of Where to Turn
Lastly, commissioners addressed a thorny signage issue that has long been a source of frustration for both patrons and staff of Women’s Healthcare of New England (WHNE) at 50 Danbury Rd. The problem is that the main entrance to the building, which is set back from the road and shielded by trees, is difficult to see when driving north on Danbury Rd. But a combination of factors makes the placement of clear entryway signage unusually challenging.
A small triangular median splits the inbound and outbound lanes of the entryway to the medical building, which WHNE shares with several other medical facilities and doctors’ offices. The ideal solution would be to place an entry sign before the entryway, but the neighboring property owner has denied WHNE’s request to allow them to place a sign there.
John Urey of Stamford-based JP Graphics explained to the commissioners that placing an entry sign in the median would not work because a sight-line survey found that it would impair the visibility of drivers leaving the facility who are trying to merge onto Danbury Rd.
That leaves one option, which is what Urey presented to the commissioners on Monday: placing the sign after the entryway, on the facility’s own property. However, as commissioner Trevor Huffard and others noted, that might cause drivers to either miss the sign until it’s too late or — worse — to attempt to turn into the outbound lane of the entryway.
After discussing options with Urey and Dilian Dimitrova of Sign Code, which is working with Urey and WHNE, the commissioners suggested leaving the sign at its proposed location but moving the bottom portion — painted orange for higher visibility and featuring a right arrow pointing to the entrance — to the median, arguing that if it is low enough it would likely not block the view of drivers. However, Wrinn pointed out that most of the median belongs to the neighboring property.
P&Z Secretary Michelle Saglimbene said she was familiar with the area and has not seen issues with a similar entrance further up Danbury Rd. and did not think that placing the sign there would cause undue confusion or raise the risk of an accident.
Ultimately, the commissioners agreed to the placement of the proposed sign past the entrance and suggested that WHNE paint large arrows on the inbound and outbound lanes to clarify the respective directions of travel — noting that permission will have to be obtained from the neighboring property owner to paint an arrow on the inbound lane.
The alternative sign package that the commissioners voted unanimously to approve also included several other signs to be installed on the building, which included minor changes that the commissioners had requested when Urey first appeared before P&Z in September.
Three Commissioners Step Up for Zoning Rewrite, will Invite Resident’s Participation
With all of the pending application approvals completed, the commissioners briefly turned to Wrinn’s proposal to establish a subcommittee of commissioners who would work with the consulting firm that will be undertaking a comprehensive rewrite of Wilton’s zoning regulations — the first in over 30 years.
Hartford-based consulting firm IMEG is targeting completion for October 2027, but that date is contingent on when the project gets underway.
Commissioners Huffard, Margit Ritz and Colin Christ volunteered to serve on the subcommittee. At Huffard’s suggestion, the commissioners agreed to invite Wilton resident Barbara Geddis to participate. An architect who previously served on the subcommittee that drafted the Greater Wilton Center Master Plan, Geddis is a frequent speaker at P&Z’s public hearings.
Geddis’ membership in the subcommittee will require approval from the Board of Selectmen (BOS), which Huffard said he will formally request.
Updates on Other Projects
During the meeting, Wrinn provided several brief updates on other projects. He noted that, as of the meeting, Hines SL Wilton LLC has not been back in touch since its pre-application hearing last month seeking input on its proposed redevelopment of the former School Sisters of Notre Dame property on Belden Hill Rd., but he expects they will be returning with a formal application.
Wrinn also noted that Kimco Realty has begun environmental remediation on the unoccupied Wilton Campus buildings at 15-21 River Rd. prior to the commencement of demolition. P&Z approved the first phase of the property redevelopment in November 2024 and conducted a pre-application review of the second phase in October.
Finally, Wrinn noted that the Planning and Zoning Department has approved six of the seven buildings at 64 Danbury Rd. for occupancy.
“So, we’re busy,” Wrinn said.
