Date: Fri 17-Sep-1999

Publication: Bee

Author: ANDYG

Quick Words:

P&Z-self-storage

Full Text:

P&Z Approves Self-Storage Facility

BY ANDREW GOROSKO

Planning and Zoning Commission (P&Z) members have approved allowing a

Bridgeport firm to build the first self-storage complex in town.

P&Z members unanimously approved a request for a special exception to the

zoning regulations from Thomas Christiano, a principal of CAP Properties

Newtown, LLC, of Bridgeport to build a complex consisting of hundreds of

individual, locked storage rooms at 133 South Main Street. The two-acre site

lies in an M-5 Industrial zone on the east side of South Main Street, about

600 feet south of South Main Street's northerly intersection with Pecks Lane.

The property is known as Parcel A-2 in an industrial subdivision approved by

the P&Z in the past for Newtown Savings Bank.

Plans provided by Mr Christiano depict a complex which will be built in two

construction phases. The initial phase will involve the construction of two

two-level storage buildings totaling 38,000 square feet in area. A second

construction phase would expand one of those two buildings by 12,000 square

feet to bring the total area to 50,000 square feet. Fourteen parking spaces

are planned for the complex.

Site plans call for two long utilitarian buildings to be built parallel to

South Main Street. In the initial construction phase, a 25,000 square-foot

warehouse will be built nearer the street, with a 13,000 square-foot building

constructed behind it. The second construction phase would involve adding

another 12,000 square feet of enclosed area to the rear building.

According to design plans, the storage units would come in seven different

sizes in square footages of 25, 50, 75, 100, 150, 200 and 300.

To prepare the site for construction, Mr Christiano plans to remove 5,665

cubic yards of earthen fill.

P&Z members placed certain conditions on their approval of the project. These

include: that visual buffer strips of vegetation be planted along the eastern,

southern and northern edges of the property to obscure the structures; that a

sign for the business not be internally lit and that it not include the

business's telephone number; that the business's sign be black and white, not

black and yellow; and that a security gate be provided at the entrance. In

granting special exceptions to the regulations, P&Z members have greater

latitude than normal in placing conditions on approvals.

Voting in favor of the project were Chairman Daniel Fogliano, Stephen Koch,

Heidi Winslow, Robert Taylor and Lilla Dean.