Zoning Rule Changes—

Allowing Housing At

Fairfield Hills Slated For Hearing

By Andrew Gorosko

In view of a development firm’s interest in creating multifamily housing in Cochran House at Fairfield Hills, Planning and Zoning Commission (P&Z) members have scheduled a public hearing for April 7 for comments on whether housing should be allowed as a permitted land use by the town’s Fairfield Hills Adaptive Reuse (FHAR) zoning regulations.

The hearing is scheduled for 7:30 pm, Thursday, April 7, at Newtown Municipal Center, 3 Primrose Street.

A New York City developer has proposed converting Cochran House into a 160-unit apartment complex, but has not yet submitted an application for the project.

P&Z Chairman Lilla Dean said March 30, “I hope that interested people will share their opinions with the commission” on the proposed zoning rule changes.

“[P&Z has] always been interested in the adaptive reuse” of facilities at Fairfield Hills, she said.

Allowing housing at Fairfield Hills has proven to be a controversial topic in the past, with some residents saying that the town-owned Fairfield Hills core campus is better suited for commercial uses.

Some residents have charged that allowing multifamily housing at Fairfield Hills would translate into a burden on the town’s school system. It is the presence of school-age children in multifamily housing complexes, and the consequent local taxation required to cover the costs for those children’s public education, which often is cited by the opponents of such redevelopment.

The FHAR zoning regulations, which were created in 1998, initially allowed several types of housing at Fairfield Hills, including multiple-family dwellings, adult congregate housing, assisted-living housing for the elderly, and multiple-family elderly housing.

In 2005, the P&Z revised the FHAR regulations to delete those four types of housing. It then rewrote the FHAR regulations to allow the reuse of existing single-family houses at Fairfield Hills for affordable housing.

However, in 2007, the P&Z again revised the FHAR regulations, eliminating the rules that would allow the reuse of existing single-family houses for affordable housing.

Broadly, the FHAR zone is intended to permit the conversion and reuse of buildings at the former state psychiatric hospital campus in a manner that is in harmony with the campus and the surrounding neighborhood. The FHAR zoning regulations allow dozens of potential uses for the campus, but not the type of multifamily housing as proposed by the developer for Cochran House.

Under P&Z’s proposal for zoning rule changes, the FHAR regulations would be revised to allow housing as a permitted use through P&Z’s special permit process.

Such housing would be limited to multiple-family dwellings at Cochran House, provided that at least ten percent of such dwellings are designated as “affordable housing,” and that the multiple-family dwellings have public sanitary sewer service and public water service.

The proposed FHAR rule changes also would allow the reuse of eight existing single-family houses at Fairfield Hills as affordable housing.

Ms Dean has said that the simplest way to attract public comment on the value of allowing housing at Fairfield Hills would be through public discussion of a proposal to revise the FHAR zoning regulations.

The 188,000-square-foot Cochran House, which was used for patient treatment and housing, was built in 1956. It was the last major building constructed at the hospital campus, where construction began in the early 1930s.

In February, P&Z members formally accepted a consultant’s planning study on the best potential locations for affordable housing.

The identified areas are: the town-owned Fairfield Hills campus; the western section of Mt Pleasant Road (Route 6) in Hawleyville; and a northern section of South Main Street (Route 25).

Those areas are listed as suitable locations for affordable housing due to their access or potential access to sanitary sewers, public water supplies, and transportation facilities, plus their proximity to areas of existing concentrated development.

Affordable housing, also known as workforce housing, is designated for moderate- and low-income families.