The Saugatuck Village apartment project on Hiawatha Lane, which was strongly opposed for nearly two decades by town officials and neighborhood residents, is now the showcased image for Westport’s draft affordable housing plan being prepared for the state.

By John Schwing

WESTPORT — Define “affordable” in town where the median annual household income is more than $222,000.

Define “affordable housing” in a town where the median value of a home is $1.116 million, and the median monthly rent is just below $1,900. (Figures based on latest U.S. Census data.)

Define “affordable housing opportunities” in a community that historically has shut the door to multiple-unit housing — high- or low-end — outside the confines of the narrow commercial corridor comprising the Post Road and a few side streets.

Define “affordable housing mandates” in a town where 3.75 percent of the total number of housing units qualify as affordable in compliance with state criteria, “far fewer than the 10 percent required by the state,” according to a statement last month by Mary Young, the town’s planning and zoning director.

Those factors and others define the challenges facing town officials — and the community at-large — as a state-mandated deadline looms to prepare an “affordable housing” plan. 

Deadline missed to comply with law

That law, 8-30j, requires Westport and every other municipality in the state, every five years, to “prepare or amend and adopt an affordable housing plan for the municipality. Such plan shall specify how the municipality intends to increase the number of affordable housing developments in the municipality.”

The state’s deadline to file the report was June 1. Town officials blamed the COVID-19 pandemic for their failure to comply with the deadline.

Critical meeting set Wednesday

As Westport officials continue working — past the official deadline — on the town’s housing affordability plan a crucial meeting will take place this week by the Affordable Housing Subcommittee of the Planning and Zoning Commission.

 The session, set for noon Wednesday, June 8, will take place online.

Draft version of plan posted for comments

A rendering of a ““pocket neighborhood” that officials say may be an option to increase Westport’s stock of affordable housing, as portrayed in the draft version of a state-mandated affordable housing report.

A 47-page “draft” version of Westport’s affordable housing plan has been posted on the town’s website.

The proposal was hammered out at a series of meetings and public forums over the last several months.

“This planning exercise, required by the state statutes, should not be viewed as an obligation, but as an opportunity to create pathways for a diversity of housing types to be developed that track with our modern values of creating equitable, diverse communities,” Danielle Dobin, the P&Z chairwoman, said in a statement announcing the draft version of the plan.

An online survey on the plan, accepting public comments through June 23, has been posted by the town.

Saugatuck Village: A plan people can rally around?

The plan suggests several possible ways that Westport can try to promote a greater inventory of affordable housing options.

The cover photo of the draft report, however, somewhat improbably underscores how difficult achieving a consensus on affordable housing proposals may be.

The report’s showcased image of the proposed Saugatuck Village apartment project on Hiawatha Lane Ext. is sure to provoke anger in that neighborhood. The proposal, the subject of multiple lawsuits for nearly 20 years — including litigation filed against the plan by the town — is strongly opposed by residents of the small, middle-class homes that would be razed to make way for the development.

The town, under a court-negotiated settlement last July, agreed to drop its opposition in exchange for the developer’s promise to set aside 30 percent of the 157 apartments as “affordable.” 

Neighbors battled on, but just last week lost their separate lawsuit seeking to halt the project.

Plan’s other highlights

Optics aside, other highlights of the plan include:

  • A town-initiated effort to study the possibility of developing a “new affordable community designed specifically for families” on a section of land owned by the state Department of Transportation on West Parish Lane, off Post Road East. The town has allocated $150,000 from its share of American Rescue Plan Act money for pre-development costs at the West Parish site, such as an architect’s design, various surveys and more.
  • Develop “location-specific plans” for town-owned land to either build affordable housing or renovate existing structures for rentals, including:
  • Cottages at Longshore Club Park, 260 Compo Road South.
  • Linxweiller House, 655 Post Road East.
  • Adams Academy, 15 Morningside Drive North.
  • Baron’s South existing buildings, 60 Compo Road South.
  • Vacant lot adjacent to the Saugatuck cooperative on Bridge Street.
  • Set aside $1.7 million “to acquire land for future development of affordable housing.”
  • Possibly create “pocket neighborhoods,” defined in the report as “small cottage/small home commons clusters.”
  • Establish a “town-funded Affordable Housing Trust Fund to direct resources toward future development of affordable housing.”

After this week’s subcommittee meeting, the full Planning and Zoning Commission is required to adopt a plan. Officials said they hope a final version will be ready for a vote at the P&Z’s meeting set for June 27.

John Schwing, the Westport Journal consulting editor, has held senior editorial and writing posts at southwestern Connecticut media outlets for four decades. Learn more about us here.