Rejected Fairfield Hills Master Plan Stalls Zoning Rule Changes

By Andrew Gorosko

In view of town voters’ recent rejection of the Fairfield Hills master plan, Planning and Zoning Commission (P&Z) members are now pondering which regulatory path to pursue in formulating revised zoning rules intended to complement the content of a Fairfield Hills master plan.

The P&Z has a set of zoning regulations that address proposed redevelopment projects at Fairfield Hills. The P&Z created the Fairfield Hills Adaptive Reuse (FHAR) zoning regulations in the spring of 1998, when it appeared likely that the Fairfield Hills core campus would be purchased from the state by some private firm for private redevelopment.

But now that the town is on the verge of acquiring the 189-acre Fairfield Hills core campus from the state, the P&Z has been considering revising its FHAR zoning rules to create a regulatory mechanism to review redevelopment proposals for a town-owned and town-managed Fairfield Hills.

The sprawling Fairfield Hills was a state psychiatric hospital until December 1995. In a June 2001 vote, town voters approved the town purchasing Fairfield Hills from the state.

The fly that has landed in the P&Z’s regulatory ointment, however, is that voters at a referendum on August 12 rejected the Fairfield Hills master plan, which had been unanimously approved by the Board of Selectmen and by the Legislative Council.

P&Z Chairman William O’Neil said August 21 that when the P&Z had embarked on revising the FHAR zoning rules several months ago, those rules, which were keyed to private ownership of Fairfield Hills, no longer made sense in view of the town’s planned acquisition of the property.

For one thing, the existing FHAR regulations prohibit the creation of municipal offices at Fairfield Hills, he noted. The master plan, which was defeated by voters, however, includes town offices as a prominent land use at Fairfield Hills.

The terms of the failed master plan were restrictive, eliminating many of the permitted land uses that are allowed by current FHAR zoning rules, Mr O’Neil said.

Well before the August 12 referendum, the P&Z had scheduled a public hearing for August 21 on its proposed changes to the FHAR zoning rules, assuming that the Fairfield Hills master plan would be endorsed by voters at the referendum. Those zoning rule changes would have made the FHAR zoning rules consistent with the provisions of the now-defunct master plan.

“All of this is now in limbo. We do not have an approved master plan,” Mr O’Neil said.

It does not now seem practical to have P&Z members revise the FHAR zoning rules, considering that a Fairfield Hills master plan is not in place, he said.

It could be several months before some master plan is in effect, he added.

When the status of a Fairfield Hills master plan becomes much clearer, the P&Z can then formulate revised FHAR regulations that conform with that plan, he said.

Review Process

P&Z member Lilla Dean urged P&Z members to carefully consider the review process that the P&Z would use for Fairfield Hills redevelopment proposals. Ms Dean suggested that the panel employ its “special exception” review process for each redevelopment proposal, rather than the “site development plan” review process. Special exception proposals require a P&Z public hearing, but site development plan proposals do not require a public hearing.

Under the proposed revisions to the FHAR regulations, which the P&Z is now holding in abeyance in light of the master plan’s rejection by voters, the P&Z had proposed that redevelopment projects be reviewed under the site development plan process, instead of the special exception process, thus eliminating the requirement for P&Z public hearings.

The P&Z’s holding a public hearing on redevelopment proposals may represent the public’s only opportunity to comment on such projects, Ms Dean said.

Under its special exception process, the P&Z exercises more control over the specifics of a redevelopment proposal than under the site development plan process, she noted.

‘Semantic Hurdles’

Mr O’Neil noted that the P&Z faces some semantic hurdles in regulating redevelopment at Fairfield Hills.

“This whole thing’s up in the air. We don’t know what constitutes a ‘change’ to the master plan,” he said.

If an approved master plan were to be changed by the town in some fashion, it would then fall to the P&Z to change its corresponding regulations, he said. However, it is not clear what would constitute such a “change” to the master plan, he said.

Mr O’Neil stressed that he is hesitant to revise the existing FHAR rules until some master plan is put in force.

If a new first selectman is elected to office in November, that person may have a different approach to the Fairfield Hills master planning process than the current first selectman, Mr O’Neil said.

Democratic incumbent First Selectman Herbert Rosenthal, who has been in office since December 1997, is being challenged by Republican opponent William Sheluck, Jr.

 At the August 21 P&Z public hearing on FHAR zoning rule changes, resident Ruby Johnson of 16 Chestnut Hill Road posed a series of questions to P&Z members. Ms Johnson was the only member of the public to comment at the hearing.

Ms Johnson, who had actively campaigned against the Fairfield Hills master plan, asked P&Z members why the town should allow stores as large as 40,000 square feet to built at Fairfield Hills.

Ms Dean explained that limiting store sizes to 40,000 square feet is intended to keep so-called “big box” stores from being built there. Big-box stores include businesses such as Wal-Mart and Home Depot, which build stores much larger than 40,000 square feet.

Having a 40,000-square-foot retail size limit makes good sense, said P&Z member Daniel Fogliano.

Ms Johnson also questioned provisions of the proposed FHAR zoning regulations that would allow movie theater complexes as a permitted use at Fairfield Hills.

Of the pending FHAR zoning rule changes, Mr O’Neil said the P&Z would again address the matter at some future session.

Mr Fogliano, however, urged that the P&Z continue working on the rule revision project in anticipation of the acceptance of some master plan.

When the matter does come up for P&Z review again, the P&Z would address it under the “communications” section of its meeting agenda, rather than under the “public hearing” section of the meeting, Mr O’Neil said.

Because Fairfield Hills zoning rule revisions are being proposed by the P&Z itself, and not by a private applicant, the normal schedules and deadlines for P&Z action on the proposal are not in force, leaving the review and action process open-ended.

“I think we’ve got about four months to work on this,” Mr O’Neil said of the zoning rule revision project. The P&Z chairman added he does not expect that a revised Fairfield Hills master plan will be submitted for P&Z review before the November town elections.