FHAR Zoning Rules—

Fairfield Hills Housing Under Review By P&Z

By Andrew Gorosko

In view of an undisclosed developer’s interest in creating multifamily housing in Cochran House at Fairfield Hills, Planning and Zoning Commission (P&Z) members have agreed to conduct a public hearing in April on whether such housing should be allowed as a permitted land use by the town’s Fairfield Hills Adaptive Reuse (FHAR) zoning regulations.

The FHAR zoning regulations, which were created in 1998, initially allowed several types of housing at Fairfield Hills, including multiple-family dwellings, adult congregate housing, assisted-living housing for the elderly, and multiple-family elderly housing.

In 2005, the P&Z revised the FHAR regulations to delete those four types of housing. It then rewrote the FHAR regulations to allow the reuse of existing single-family houses at Fairfield Hills for affordable housing.

However, in 2007, the P&Z again revised the FHAR regulations, eliminating the rules that would allow the reuse of existing single-family houses for affordable housing.

Broadly, the FHAR zone is intended to permit the conversion and reuse of buildings at the former state psychiatric hospital campus in a manner that is in harmony with the campus and the surrounding neighborhood. The FHAR zoning regulations allow dozens of potential uses for the campus, but not housing as proposed by the undisclosed developer.

At a February 17 session, P&Z members agreed to a tentative date of April 7 for a public hearing on changing the FHAR zoning rules to allow housing as a permitted use at Fairfield Hills.

According to a February 2 draft proposal for zoning rule changes, the FHAR regulations would be revised to allow housing as a permitted use through the P&Z’s special permit process.

Such housing would be limited to multiple-family dwellings at Cochran House, provided that at least ten percent of such dwellings are designated as “affordable housing,” and that the multiple-family dwellings have public sanitary sewer service and public water service.

The proposed FHAR rule changes also would allow the reuse of existing single-family houses at Fairfield Hills as affordable housing.

P&Z Chairman Lilla Dean said she had discussed the zoning rule matter with John Reed, who is chairman of the Fairfield Hills Authority (FHA).

“I don’t think it’s a bad idea to get this [rule change proposal] out,” she said. “I know it’s a ‘hot button’ issue,” she said of the controversial topic.

Ms Dean suggested that besides covering the large Cochran House and the eight existing wood-frame houses at Fairfield Hills, the proposed FHAR zoning rule changes might also cover allowing housing at a cluster of five masonry duplexes located at the Washington Square section of the core campus.

The simplest way to attract public comment on the value of allowing housing at Fairfield Hills would be through public discussion of a proposal to revise the FHAR zoning regulations, Ms Dean said.

“It’s just a way to open the discussion,” she said.

Ms Dean said she strongly doubts that the Board of Selectmen or the Legislative Council would hold public sessions to discuss the controversial Fairfield Hills housing issue.

Ms Dean noted that Cochran House lies on the edge of the Fairfield Hills campus and has the general external appearance of an apartment building.

The 188,000-square-foot Cochran House, which was used for patient treatment and housing, was built in 1956. It was the last major building constructed at the hospital campus, where construction began in the early 1930s.

P&Z member Michael Porco observed, “Making Cochran House into apartments is a bad idea, even though it’s on the edge” of the campus.

Such a conversion of that building into an apartment building would translate into a burden on the town’s school system, he said.

It is the presence of school-age children in multifamily housing complexes, and the consequent local taxation required to cover the costs for those children’s public education, which often is cited by opponents of such development.

Ms Dean responded that such multifamily housing would not necessarily contain many school-age children.

Earlier this month, P&Z members formally accepted a consultant’s planning study on the best potential locations for affordable housing.

The identified areas are: the town-owned Fairfield Hills campus; the western section of Mt Pleasant Road (Route 6) in Hawleyville; and a northern section of South Main Street (Route 25).

Those areas are listed as suitable locations for affordable housing due to their access or potential access to sanitary sewers, public water supplies, and transportation facilities, plus their proximity to areas of existing concentrated development.