Newtown’s Planning & Zoning Commission held a regular meeting on Thursday, June 18, to discuss a new application for 134-136 Mt Pleasant Road. The applications, 26.09 and 26.10, are for a text amendment and a zone change, respectively.

Commissioner Connie Widmann was acting chair for the meeting. She asked if there were any public comments to be made, but hearing none, she asked Commissioner Barbara Manville to read the applications into the record. Readers should know that applications 26.08 by Town of Newtown to amend zoning regulations and 26.11 by Diana Perachio for a subdivision at 6 Schoolhouse Hill Road were both continued to the next meeting, Thursday, July 2, 7 pm.

Summit at Newtown LLC is the applicant for both 26.09 and 26.10. The text amendment application is looking to “modify the Elderly Housing Zone (EH-10), Article III — Residential Uses, Section 3.02A — Multiple Family for Elderly Housing — Middle Density, to allow independent living for fifty-five years of age and older with supporting amenities.”

The zone change application reads, “For a property located at 134-136 Mount Pleasant Road, so as to create a new zoning district from a General Business (B-2) Zoning District to Multiple Family for Elderly Housing Middle Density (EH-10 MD).”

Attorney Peter Olson represented the applicant. He said, “Summit Residential is an Albany-based company that runs a number of independent living facilities in what they call the capital region up there. This would be their first project in Connecticut — in Fairfield county, anyway.”

Olson said the application is “twofold,” and that the proposed elderly housing district is modeled after the existing elderly housing district.

“Essentially, the fundamental changes that we’ve made that meant that we couldn’t use the existing EH-10 are to add independent living housing units as an option,” Olson said, “We didn’t think it met the criteria of anything in the EH-10 right now.”

Olson explained that the text amendment had some “other minor tweaks” for setbacks and buffering “that make the project work on this particular piece of property for us.” He further explained the possible demographic of this property would be “older persons” that are “capable of independent living,” and would not need “skilled nursing care” or “medical care to help them get through their day.”

Olson provided more information on the community: Summit provides residents with educational opportunities, social opportunities, and provides breakfast for residents. Shuttle services are provided to those within the development.

“Frank Nigro, who’s the principal of Summit, says that we all know people really tend to go downhill if everything they’re doing is on their own,” Olson said. He then showed a brief marketing video about Summit to the crowd.

Olson then described the properties: between 134 and 136 Mt Pleasant Road, the entire parcel is almost 12.5 acres within the B-2 zoning district. Minus the wetlands on the property, there are about 11 net acres to use. He explained that with the net acreage, there could be ten units per acre, so 110 units in total. Olson also made reference to the Federal Housing for Older Persons Act, which he explained as “legalized discrimination.”

Olson went over more particulars of his text amendment, like fixing the numbers in sections, accessory uses, parking, driveways, and more.

“There’s a requirement in the EH-10, the existing one, that you provide a secondary access for fire. We can’t do that because we only have frontage on the state highway, so I added a provision that says you don’t have to do it if you have frontage on a state highway,” Olson told the commission.

The parking ratio is, as Olson described as “appropriately set,” 1.25 parking spaces per unit. He explained that other residents in Summit communities do not have cars, but need spaces for visitors to park.

Finishing his text amendment portion, he then moved to discuss the zone change he is asking for. Olson hopes to rezone the property as EH-10 from B-2. He then showed a conceptual drawing for the building.

“This is consistent with the other sites,” Olson said, “but we have an architecture that we think fits in with the character of Newtown.” He went over more specs of the site, like the wetlands, which create a lot of open space near the back of the property. Due to this, the main building, parking, and driveway are close to the road.

Commissioners’ Questions

Following Olson’s presentation, Widmann opened the floor to questions from commissioners. She started by asking about sideline setbacks changing from 50 feet to 25. Olson responded, saying that because this site is in a B-2 zone, a 25-foot setback would be appropriate. In a residential area, the setbacks would still be 50 feet.

Widmann asked if the units would be available for rent or purchase, and Olson said rent.

Commissioner Peter Schwarz asked if the units would be “market rate” units.

Olson replied with, “The community itself, because it provides significant additional amenities beyond just a place to live, there’s a premium associated with that. So the answer is ‘yes,’ but probably higher than you would expect for market rate.”

Manville asked about how much a month they would cost. Olson said he could not answer that as “the market is going to drive that.” Manville asked how much Summit charges in Albany. Olson said he could not answer that either. He stated that he would get the information for the commission and return with more answers.

Manville asked more about parking and if it is connected to the building. Olson replied that there is surface parking around the building. Olson described the detached garages that would be available to residents for Manville.

Alternate Commissioner Don Mitchell spoke next: “It seems to me that most of the changes you’re asking in the text are in service of your density calculation, the setbacks and so forth, and the density goes from EH-10 is four units per acre, and this is ten per acre. I know that this offers to fulfill a real need — senior housing — but it also does some other things. It takes opportunities away for housing for other groups. This could be affordable, but this would be affordable for seniors. We need affordable for everyone.”

Mitchell also shared concerns that another 110 units that are not affordable would put Newtown behind on meeting the Department of Housing calculations that say a community needs ten percent of its housing to be affordable.

Olson explained that the developers figured the number of units they needed to make the project “financially viable,” and then they “worked backwards from there.” They used ten as it is a “nice, round number,” and multiplied it by the net acres, which is 11. He added that this project “is definitely not intended to be an affordable housing project.”

“The amenities that are provided provide a premium service to our residents, and that drives higher rents, and that means that affordable units just don’t work. We cannot make the math work for what we provide as a program if we are providing affordable units,” Olson told the commission. “That’s why we have not proposed an affordable component, and we ask that you not impose one on us.”

Mitchell questioned Olson as to why he and the applicant created a new subsection for EH-10, which is subsection G, “housing units for independent living.” Mitchell asked if there were no other subsections that covered this type of development. Olson said that he did not feel any of those definitions accurately described what he is proposing.

Mitchell then asked about density and if Olson knew of any other development in town, excluding the Fairfield Hills redevelopment and 8-30g applications, that are ten units per acre. Olson replied no, and said, “the reality is your regulations currently don’t allow that type of density.”

“Newtown’s taken some pride in the past in being a rural community,” Mitchell began. “We’re past being rural. But still, there’s that notion of rural, which really depends on density. This is a jump in density, I think, for the town.”

Olson said he thinks that is correct, but the area where he is proposing the development can handle the density.

Schwarz said that it is more than a density question and bleeds into a “functionality question,” as the commission would be “surrendering a business zone.”

Alternate Commissioner Charlie Gardner asked about sewer and where it would flow. Olson responded that it likely flows into Danbury through Bethel. Gardner added that he was briefly looking up other properties and cited Maplewood as being 100 units on ten acres. Olson said he actually did that project and recalled it being only six acres, but that it is also a memory care facility and falls in a different use.

Widmann asked for more clarity on the district that is being proposed. Olson explained that he took the existing EH-10 regulations and tweaked them a bit as changing the EH-10 regulations would “open up a can of worms for every approved EH-10 project.”

Gardner acknowledged the amount of special zones that have been created and was wondering if changing the existing regulations would be better as the special zones “makes the zoning code run into the hundreds and hundreds of pages and get less intelligible.” Olson said the “uniformity requirement” would make it hard and allowing density up to ten units per acre would mean other EH-10 zones could suddenly bump up their number of units with these new regulations.

Gardner added to his point, noting that Mitchell pointed out that there seem to be other types of housing in the EH-10 regulations that could support this development. Olson reiterated that he did not want to disturb other EH-10 developments.

Director of Planning & Land Use Rob Sibley suggested the commission ask the applicant to find other properties in town this proposed zone could work for and present that at the next meeting and to check the Plan of Conservation and Development (POCD). Sibley reminded the commission one of the biggest “visions and goals” is housing, specifically expanding options for senior housing. Following Sibley’s comments, the floor was opened for public comment.

Public Comment

The first to speak was Attorney Kevin McSherry, representing the property owners Olga and Frank Koskelowski. He shared that his two clients received a lot of different kinds of offers for the site.

“My clients were very concerned about taking an offer that was going to leave something for the town to be helpful,” McSherry said to the commission. He explained that this independent living community “seemed like a good opportunity to take care of a couple of needs that the town would have in terms of health, safety, and welfare.” He added that his clients wanted to honor the previous property owner who the Koskelowskis inherited the property from and thought this was “a good way to do it.” McSherry said that one of the commissioners recognized that it is not a business development, but McSherry said that it is a “business model.”

Vern Gaudet spoke next. He told the commission they had to be careful when changing zones because Hawleyville has a lot of apartments and buildings that have come in. He shared that his own mother is in a place like this that is $3,500 a month but “not half as nice as what was presented here.” Gaudet then shared concerns about traffic in the area while acknowledging the need for this type of housing.

Janet McKeown was the next to comment. She raised concerns about traffic as well, and pointed out several high-traffic developments in the span of one mile from this development. She also shared that her property abuts the parcel in the back.

Heidi Winslow then took the floor. She shared that at Liberty at Newtown, there are mahjong nights, bocce, a jacuzzi, bridge games, poker games, barbecues, and more. “There’s nothing that you can’t do in our existing zone, even if you rent out the units. Our present regulations allow for rentals,” Winslow said.

Winslow described some history behind EH-10, as she served on P&Z as a commissioner for 11 years. She helped to draft the regulations and encouraged condos and apartments in town. Winslow said that denser senior housing will discourage affordable housing for all ages.

Ken Boughton spoke next and also shared concerns about traffic.

Dave Ackert joined via Google Meet and said, “Hyper dense development that does not help increase our percentage of affordable housing should be a non-starter, period. I also believe that eliminating a much-needed business zone on one of our borders near lots of other residential projects should be a non-starter. I’m not sure why we would want to cede business to another town across the border.”

Ackert said he also thinks the “core” of the POCD is to strike a “zoning balance” between business and residential uses.

Olson Responds

Olson was invited back to the floor to respond. He shared that he did not want to get “too much into the technical discussion” of traffic as he believes that is more of a site plan. He shared that this development is on a state highway, so DOT will have to weigh in on sight lines, driveways, and access ways. Olson gave the commission a traffic report for the development in Queensbury, New York, which also had 110 units.

Olson shared that he did not believe this project would be considered “hyper dense” because other projects are putting 30 units on one acre, and ten units is “significantly under that.” He agreed with Mitchell about this not helping Newtown reach its ten percent affordable housing criteria, but said, “No town will ever reach the ten percent goal. It’s just not possible. The statute was written in a way, and I’m sorry, but it will never happen.” Olson also made a comment about the property being zoned commercial but not being developed commercial for 50 years.

The public hearing was continued to the next meeting, Thursday, July 2, 7 pm at Newtown Municipal Center’s Council Chambers.

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Reporter Sam Cross can be reached at sam@thebee.com.