P&Z Roundup: Townhouse Affordable-Housing Fork in the Road, Danbury Rd. Legal Questions and Major Hearing Ahead

After smooth sailing through Wilton’s Water Pollution Control Authority (WPCA) and the Architectural Review Board and Village District Design Advisory Committee (ARB/VDDAC), a proposal for a five-unit townhouse development on 20 Old Ridgefield Rd. ran into headwinds from the Planning and Zoning Commission (P&Z) when the commissioners pushed back against the developer’s request to be exempted from designating one of its units as affordable housing.

Wilton architect Samuel Gardner, a former chair of the VDDAC representing the applicants, property owners Heather and Marek Mroz of M&M Constructions, said he believed the development was exempt from the affordability provision under the terms of H.B. 8002, an Act Concerning Housing Growth. Gardner argued that the state law gives P&Z the authority to waive the requirement for projects with fewer than 10 units.

The Wilton Center Overlay District, in which the applicants are seeking to have the property included, requires that 10% of units — or, in this case, a minimum of one unit — remain deed-restricted as affordable housing, with eligibility and pricing based on the state’s median-income level rather than to current market prices.

The immediate problem, as Director of Planning and Land Use Management Michael Wrinn explained, is that the application submitted to P&Z did not formally request a waiver from the affordability requirement. The commission could not grant a waiver based solely on the request Gardner raised during the meeting.

If the applicants want to build the development without an affordable unit, that would leave them to choose between two potential paths.

They could continue under the Wilton Center Overlay District regulations and formally ask P&Z to waive the affordable-unit requirement, although commissioners made clear that approval would not be guaranteed.

Alternatively, they could withdraw the pending applications for a special permit and a zoning change and submit a new proposal under Wilton’s recently adopted — and still evolving — middle-housing regulation, which does not have an affordability requirement.

If the applicants decide to move forward with a middle housing application, it would be reviewed administratively by the town’s zoning enforcement officer rather than through a P&Z public hearing. It would also be Wilton’s first such application under the new, as-yet-untested chapter of the town’s zoning regulation.

The current commissioners have made housing affordability a primary focus of their tenure. In July they voted to use the state’s median income standard when determining eligibility for affordable housing units — not only to open up more housing options to working families, but also to improve the town’s chances of securing another four-year 8-30g moratorium.

“I’m a Little Shocked, Actually”

Wrinn explained how pursuing the middle-housing route would change the approval process.

“If you’re telling us you do not want to do an affordable unit, then you have to explore the middle housing development route to see that you still comply with the regulations for that zone,” he said. “But you’re not going to be able to … request a waiver or modification of that, because that can only be done by the [P&Z] commission.”

P&Z Chair Ken Hoffman noted that P&Z has granted exceptions on a case-by-case basis, but did not address whether the state law gave P&Z a blanket authority in such cases.

Warning that “this is drifting dangerously towards us providing [legal] advice,” Hoffman said that if Gardner wanted to continue with the P&Z review, the commissioners would entertain a formal application for a waiver from the affordability requirement, but that did not mean it would be granted. He suggested that the applicants consider consulting with a land-use attorney to discuss their options.

“I’m a little shocked, actually,” Heather Mroz told P&Z during the deliberations. “We didn’t realize there was going to be this kind of need to hire an attorney and all this, because I thought we were in compliance with everything we were asked to do.”

Regardless of whether the Mrozes opt for the middle housing route or proceed with their P&Z application, they will also have to address another issue flagged by Wrinn: a request to waive the zoning requirement that the building occupy 50% of the frontage on Old Ridgefield Rd. The Mrozes are seeking approval for 43% frontage, due to constraints imposed by the unusual geometry of the parcel, which is located at the sharply angled intersection of Old Ridgefield Rd. and Ridgefield Rd.

The commissioners agreed to keep the public hearing open to allow Gardner and the Mrozes to decide their next steps and consult with the Planning and Zoning Department, and deferred a discussion about specific aspects of the project in the meantime. Gardner said they would have a decision for P&Z at its next meeting on Sept. 28.

Legal Questions Slow 33 Danbury Rd. Redevelopment Proposal

Another redevelopment project that also recently received praise from ARB returned to P&Z during its Sept. 14 meeting, nearly a year after its pre-application hearing before the commissioners.

CHEL Associates LLC is proposing to renovate the six-unit mixed-use commercial building at 33 Danbury Rd. and its eyesore parking lot in an attempt to attract high-end retailers to the southern end of town. CHEL is seeking a special permit to allow them to place six residential rental units on the second floor of the two-story building and retain five retail units on the ground floor, two of which would be restaurants.

Attorney John Hall of Lovejoy & Rimer PC said that because the property abuts the Norwalk River, CHEL went through what he described as “a very, very intense wetland review” before Wilton’s Inland Wetlands Commission (IWC) last October to develop a conservation and planting plan that IWC approved. In May, CHEL’s proposal received a favorable review from ARB.

CHEL is proposing to renovate the existing ground-floor retail spaces and convert the second-floor office spaces into six residential units, add an elevator to the rear of the building, and upgrade the existing fire escape on the side. The building’s front façade will be finished in painted brick, and the sides and rear will be fitted with EIFS (Exterior Insulation and Finish Systems). The existing storefronts will be reconstructed with new frames and windows and a canopy, with bollards installed in front of the retail parking spaces. Dedicated residential parking will be located in the rear.

Although tenants have not been identified for the restaurant spaces, Wrinn told the commissioners that they had the ability to approve a “vanilla box restaurant” in the meantime.

The proposal hit two legal bumps during the Sept. 14 public hearing. The first has to do with the number of restaurants. CHEL is seeking to have the building approved for two restaurants, and while the architectural plans and site plan specify two restaurants, the application only specifies one. Hall said the conflict was a simple mistake, and he has requested town counsel to weigh in on whether it would invalidate the application process because the error was included in the public notice of CHEL’s application before P&Z.

The second issue, which Hall also brought to town counsel for an opinion, has to do with the somewhat arcane math involved in determining the property’s floor area ratio (FAR), the ratio of a building’s floor space to the total size of the land parcel.

The parcel, which is slightly less than an acre in size, previously had a house on it that was demolished in 2024 under a blight lien. CHEL is seeking approval from P&Z to count the demolished house’s floor space in its FAR calculations as a “pre-existing condition,” which would obviate the need to request a variance from P&Z for a FAR that is below that specified in the town’s zoning regulations for the Design Retail Business District (DRB). Hall noted that when the mixed-use building was constructed in 1961, the FAR requirement was not part of the town’s zoning regulations. Thus, although the building is non-conforming, it should be allowed to be grandfathered in.

Hall said, and Wrinn confirmed, that town counsel had given a verbal approval of that interpretation. Hoffman, however, said that he wanted to see the counsel’s opinion in writing.

There were no public comments during the hearing.

The commissioners agreed to keep the public hearing open to allow town counsel to submit its opinions on the two issues in writing, so that they could be posted on the town website for public review.

Wilton Campus Redevelopment Proposal on Deck for Next P&Z Meeting

Near the end of the Sept. 14 meeting, Hoffman looked ahead to P&Z’s next meeting, which will be the opening of the public hearing on the proposed redevelopment of the former School Sisters of Notre Dame property at 329-331-345 Belden Hill Rd. into a senior living community with 280 residential independent living, assisted living and memory care units.

“I think there’s going to be a lot of reading here to do, and I really encourage the commissioners to do some research before those meetings,” Hoffman said. “I would imagine that these [hearings] will [be] well-attended … when we get to that particular stage.”

Hoffman also noted that the proposal has generated “a great deal of discussion in the press” and encouraged the commissioners to confine their deliberations to the public record during P&Z meetings.

The project has generated a significant amount of controversy among neighbors, with supporters saying that it’s the best available option for the property and opponents arguing that it will increase traffic congestion in the rural neighborhood. A neighbor has filed a lawsuit in Connecticut Superior Court against the IWC and developer Hines SL Wilton Associates LP over the approval of a wetland permit in July, and the property’s owner, SSND Real Estate Trust, has taken Wilton to court over its valuations and resulting assessments of the three parcels that make up the property and the town’s decision to deny full tax-exempt status to the property while awaiting redevelopment.

Hoffman also dispelled rumors that there may be a competing proposal for the development of the 38-acre property.

“No matter what you may hear, I am not aware of any filed competing applications for this [site], or any such communication from the School Sisters or anyone else,” Hoffman said. “This is the only application on this property that stands right now before the town.”