By Kerri Willliams
WESTPORT – In Wednesday’s subcommittee meeting, several members of the public asked the Planning & Zoning Commission to change the General Business District/Saugatuck Marina zone, originally created for the Hamlet project, sooner rather than later.
More than forty viewers attended the meeting of P&Z’s Zoning Regulation Revision subcommittee, which got testy at times.
“The text amendment just needs to go away,” said Jennifer Johnson, one of several members of the public to speak out about the controversial GBD/SM zone. “I urge the commission to just get rid of what’s on the books.”
For their part, P&Z commissioners, who have been working on a change since May, also agreed on changing the area to the General Business District/Saugatuck Zone, like the nearby Gault properties. The matter will come back to the full commission at its next meeting, July 27, but it cannot be voted on until August, according to Michelle Perillie, P&Z director.
The discussion got testy between P&Z Chairman Paul Lebowitz and Commissioner Michael Calise, who, along with fellow Commissioner Patrizia Zucaro, wrote an op-ed piece saying that the zoning decision has been stalled.
Calise referred to a “failure in leadership” that he saw when the commission did not vote on a zone change during its July 13 meeting. At that meeting, Calise had put forth a plan to change the GBD/SM zone to its original designation of General Business District.
Lebowitz defended the text change going back to subcommittee, saying he would not put forth a vote on a “major text change” when just four out of seven commissioners were present at the end of the meeting on July 13.
However, the video for that meeting shows all six commissioners voting to bring the matter to subcommittee. The vote was 5-1, with Patrizia Zucaro the only “no.” There are currently six full members of the commission, as commissioner John Bolton recently stepped down.
Lebowitz stated that his other problem with taking the vote on July 13 was that members were disagreeing on which zone designation to use. While Calise had recommended GBD, Lebowitz said it was a bad fit for the area along the Saugatuck River since the zone rewards large swaths of parking for commercial building, among other provisions.
“The GBD insists on a lot of parking,” Lebowitz said, while the Gault zoning calls for parking underneath. “I will not let you ramrod GBD down our throats without more discussion,” he added.
Later, Calise said that he would support a zone change to the GBD/S, along with Zucaro and other commissioners.
Members of the public were not as concerned about the zoning designation as they were that it be changed from the current one, which precipitated the controversial Hamlet application. The P&Z denied the application after some in the community expressed concerns about scale, parking, traffic and the character of the proposed development.
“My understanding is that either zone would work as a temporary stop gap measure,” said Toni Simonetti during public comment, adding that the “crazy Hamlet zone” needs to be replaced. “The point is to do it now,” she said.
Currently, the Planning & Zoning Commission has been hearing a pre-application for a residential development by Spinnaker Real Estate Partners at 606 Riverside Ave., a portion of the area where the Hamlet proposal was located. According to P&Z director Perillie, Spinnaker plans to come forward with yet another zoning subdistrict proposal for its development.
Kerri Williams
Kerri Williams is an award-winning writer and journalist. She has worked as a reporter at the Norwalk Hour, as Living editor at the Darien News-Review, and managing editor for the Norwalk Citizen-News. For Westport Journal, she is a reporter as well as a gardening columnist, writing “Cultivating with Kerri.” She recently published her first children’s book – “Mabel’s Big Move,” based on her daughter with special needs.
What is a wonderful thing about Westport is the honesty of debate on issues that affect everyone. Personally I agree will Calise, mostly because I grew up going to Calise’s every Sunday for hamburger meat from the butcher, but also because it just makes so much sense to return the zone back to what it needs to be and should always have been. So again the thing more important than my opinion, is the discussion, which is up front and in the open. Westport is about values, it’s not a fake town, rare, and should be cherished and further appreciated, and this is the reason I love to participate in the comments section of this news outlet, it’s not fake, people can say what they think without hesitation!!! In Iran, for instance, the government murdered 50,000 innocent protesters during a 2 day period in January.
Writing a short note to express my support for the P&Z Commission’s directional decision regarding commercial zoning in Westport’s Saugatuck district south of the I-95 overpass. As described in the article above, overall, the Commission plans to revert the zoning standard created by the Text Amendment of 2022, to the former “General Business District” that existed prior to that decision.
For the benefit of readers, I want to simplify some of what this means. To do so, consider the concept of “Upzoning”. That is when a municipal authority responsible for zoning, changes the zoning, usually to encourage new real estate development. As a general concept, that can be fine. But upzoning should have sensible limits. The Text Amendment of 2022 effectively upzoned the subject area by 800%. That means that a piece of land that had a zoning limit for a 10,000 square feet building, would then be eligible to be an 80,000 square feet structure. Since 2022, I have had the opportunity to talk about this 800% increase with architects, developers and land-use experts. They all commented that 800% was a bizarrely high increase, a level with little precedent, and difficult to justify or explain.
So thank you in advance to the P&Z of 2026 for correcting the 2022 decision. And the alternative – allowing zoning subdistrict proposals for sensible new developers (like Spinnaker) – seems like a good plan to me.
Really Rick! 19 units per acre compared to the 100 we are being force fed with this spinniker application, this IS 8-30g density. You should hide in your 10000sq estate if this is passed. Your group (the alliance) is the direct reason we will have a monolithic structure taller then 21 Charles, which has been the peraya of Saugatuck for generations.
Additionaly, after this mostrasity is finished. The next zone might be held to 2.5/3.5 stories, being absolutely dwarfed by something that was presented to us time and time again as a real possibility if we did not foster a middle ground. So much for “planning”.
Where’s the out cry for a “model”? How does it scale compared to 95? How does this add to the slices community? What about the traffic at rush hour?
The alliance should be ashamed for fostering “Sono scale” in Saugatuck.