Hearing Set On

New Housing Rules

By Andrew Gorosko

Planning and Zoning Commission (P&Z) members have scheduled a public hearing for Thursday, May 3, on a set of proposed zoning rules known as the Multiple Housing Development (MHD) regulations. The hearing is slated for 7:30 pm at Newtown Municipal Center, 3 Primrose Street.

The rules would specify the requirements for high-density multifamily housing complexes whose dwellings would be rented out or sold at market-rate prices.

George Benson, town director of planning and land use, had presented a proposed set of MHD rules for P&Z’s members’ review earlier this month. P&Z members discussed the MHD zoning proposal at April 19 session, recommending various revisions to the rules slated for public discussion at the May 3 hearing.

Mr Benson said on April 25 that a revised version of the zoning proposal was not yet available, but should be available for public review before the hearing.

In the proposal presented earlier this month, MHD complexes would be allowed a maximum of 100 dwellings at sites in R-2 and R-3 (residential) zones.

The proposed MHD rules are intended to encourage physical flexibility in site design and housing construction types to promote housing choice, economic diversity, and open space preservation. The vast majority of local residents live in single-family houses.

Such housing would be rented out or sold at market rates and not be categorized as “affordable housing.”

The town has zoning rules that regulate high-density, multifamily housing complexes in which a significant fraction of the dwellings are designated as “affordable housing.” Such affordable units can be rented out or sold at subsidized rates that are well below the rental prices or sale prices of the market-rate units in such complexes.

P&Z Chairman Lilla Dean told P&Z members April 19 that creating a set of MHD zoning rules is suitable for the town.

“This is the right thing to do” in terms of offering a variety of housing types locally, she said.

As proposed, the MHD zoning rules would apply to certain land along Route 6 (Mt Pleasant Road) in Hawleyville, she said.

“It’s really still a work in progress,” Ms Dean said of the current formative stage of the MHD zoning proposal.

Mr Benson said on April 25 he expects that the MHD proposal to be submitted to the May 3 public hearing would allow high-density housing only in areas that have access to public water supplies and to sanitary sewer systems, thus greatly limiting the places where such growth could occur.

Applicable locations would be along Mt Pleasant Road in Hawleyville, he said, adding MHD zoning would not cover the town-owned Fairfield Hills campus.

Mr Benson stressed that the MHD zoning proposal is in the formative stages, adding that the P&Z is unlikely to vote soon on creating such regulations.

The MHD zoning rules proposal is a revision of the Conservation Multifamily District (CMD) zoning regulations proposal, which P&Z members had discussed at an agency session last December 1, but did not act on.

The initial version of the MHD zoning proposal states that such housing complexes would be subject to the “special permit” provisions of the zoning regulations, thus providing the P&Z with much latitude in specifying the requirements for such construction.

Under that proposal, such projects’ developers would need to designate at least 30 percent of the site as “common open space,” which is suitable for both active and passive forms of recreation. Such open space remains under the private ownership of the property owners at the site and would be maintained by those property owners.

Mr Benson has said he expects that the P&Z would have multiple public hearings on the MHD zoning proposal before acting on it.