P&Z Reviews Its Rules For Housing For The Elderly

By Andrew Gorosko

Planning and Zoning Commission (P&Z) members are revising the town’s zoning regulations on housing for the elderly to better address “independent living” forms of senior housing.

P&Z members July 20 discussed at length possible modifications to the agency’s EH-10 zoning regulations to make them clearer and more workable.

Resident Mary Burnham of 24 Walnut Tree Hill Road, a member of an ad hoc P&Z committee that has been reworking the regulations, discussed possible rule changes with P&Z members. Ms Burnham lives next door to Walnut Tree Village, an 80-unit condominium complex for the elderly, which is an independent living form of senior housing. Ms Burnham has been a persistent critic of Walnut Tree Villlage since it was in the planning stages in 1994.

 The committee has considered many rule revisions in seeking to create an improved set of elderly housing regulations, Ms Burnham said.

The proposed changes would be generally more restrictive than the current EH-10 regulations, said Elizabeth Stocker, the P&Z’s planner.

The proposed changes would generally reduce construction densities and create bigger setbacks at complexes than the current rules. Under the proposed changes, the environmental constraints on a given piece of property would be a factor in setting the construction density limits on a property. An intent of the proposed changes is to more thoroughly buffer the surrounding neighborhood from a senior housing complex.

The committee is working to formulate rules that are clearer and more usable by the P&Z, builders, and the residents of neighborhoods near housing complexes, Ms Burnham said. Revised regulations would strike a balance which addresses issues of concern to those groups, she said.

The committee needs guidance from the P&Z in continuing its work, Ms Burnham said. Technical issues discussed by the committee have included lot frontages, development buffers, and setbacks.

P&Z member Heidi Winslow posed a philosophical question for P&Z members to consider. She asked: Should land use zones designated for elderly housing be centralized or be scattered throughout town?

Ms Winslow, a member of the study committee, said she believes that centralizing such housing makes more sense in terms of local road quality and traffic safety. The P&Z currently has no guidelines on what constitutes a good location for elderly housing, she noted.

In light of the various restrictions which the committee now proposes placing on elderly housing complexes, P&Z Chairman Daniel Fogliano asked Ms Burnham what incentives the revised regulations would provide to create elderly housing.

Mr Fogliano also asked how revised regulations would address the issue of “walkout basements” at such complexes.

The P&Z became embroiled in a controversy with Walnut Tree Developers after the developers created some walkout basements at Walnut Tree Village without first having received direct approvals from the P&Z to do so. After they created the walkout basements, the developers then sought after-the-fact approvals for the work from the P&Z, but P&Z members ultimately refused to approve the walkout basements.

Mr Fogliano said that in formulating revisions to the elderly housing regulations, the committee must balance the desire to develop such residential uses with minimizing such residential uses’ adverse effects on surrounding neighborhoods.

The committee is expected to present a set of modified elderly housing regulations for P&Z review at an upcoming session, which the P&Z may then modify, before submitting them for comment at a public hearing.

The P&Z created the EH-10 zoning regulations on elderly housing in the 1970s in light of the construction of Nunnawauk Meadows, a publicly subsidized non-profit housing complex for the elderly on Nunnawauk Road. Nunnawauk Meadows has grown in stages since then. It now has 120 rental apartments.

Several Forms

Besides revised rules covering independent living complexes such as Nunnawauk Meadows and Walnut Tree Village, P&Z members have said they plan to create zoning regulations which address other types of elderly housing.

Ashlar of Newtown is a private nursing home. Ashlar’s attached Lockwood Lodge is a private assisted living complex. The Homesteads at Newtown on Mt Pleasant Road, which is now under construction, will provide private assisted living, congregate housing, and independent living facilities.

Many residents of the town’s three mobile home parks are senior citizens.

Besides the senior housing complexes that exist or are under construction, two new senior housing complexes have been proposed locally. They are a 110-unit town house condominium complex for people over 55 proposed for Mt Pleasant Road by Ginsburg Development Connecticut, LLC, and a 78-unit assisted living complex proposed for Church Hill Road by Benchmark Assisted Living.

The Ginsburg project is proposed for a site that lies mostly in the Borough of Newtown and partially in the Town of Newtown. The Benchmark site is entirely within the borough. The Borough Zoning Commission does not have regulations on senior housing.

Although the P&Z does not require senior citizen complexes to donate open space land to the town or to a land trust, it may be appropriate to require such open space donations at future facilities which are operated for a profit, Ms Winslow has said.