By John Schwing
WESTPORT — A first step on a long, challenging path to developing more affordable housing in town?
Or a familiar foray down the slippery slope of debate that has engulfed use of the Baron’s South open-space property for more than two decades?
And are buildings on the property worth saving, given the steady drip of expenditures for their maintenance, as revealed in newly released documents?
Those opposing dynamics may well be on the minds of Planning and Zoning Commission members when they take a field trip Tuesday to inspect the five buildings on the 22-acre, town-owned site.
The visit is designed to familiarize zoners with existing structures on the property — including the former “Golden Shadows” mansion — as they consider a new text amendment that could pave the way for adapting those buildings into as many as 19 to 22 affordable housing units.
Proposed text amendment 849 would modify the current “Dedicated Open Space and Recreation District” applied to Baron’s South — which prohibits any activities other than passive recreation — to “permit the renovation and expansion of the existing buildings for two-family or multi-family dwellings.”
Without a change in the DOSRD, however, no housing of any kind — affordable or not — could be developed on the property, which the town acquired in 1999 and has, for the most part, remained as it was then.
And there’s the rub.
New idea follows fraught legacy
The idea was introduced in 2023 and subsequently reviewed and revised at several P&Z subcommittee meetings. It would establish a framework for a plan by the Tooker administration to permit renovation of the property’s five buildings into apartments that would be rented in compliance with state-set “affordable” criteria.
During that time, the proposal received generally positive feedback in contrast to the fierce opposition mounted by open-space advocates to previous plans that might permit active recreational use, let alone construction, such as a plan to build seniors’ housing defeated in 2015.
But when the proposal came before the full P&Z earlier this month, questions surfaced about the negative impact any housing project proposed under the amendment’s guidelines could potentially have on the property.
An expensive proposition?
Concerns also were expressed about the potential costs.
Newly disclosed records on maintenance expenses for the Baron’s South buildings appear to underscore those concerns about significant expenditures that may be needed to make them habitable, even though several are currently rented as “workforce” housing to town employees.
Work orders for maintenance and repairs of the buildings, from July 2015 to early February 2025, show the town spent nearly $104,000 during that period, according to data recently provided to Sal Liccione, a District 9 member of the Representative Town Meeting.
However, similar records covering the first 16 years of the town’s ownership of Baron’s South are not available, Liccione said he was told by town Finance Director Gary Conrad.
Records that are available for the most recent decade detail work orders for maintenance and repairs, most carried out by town employees, with a few done by outside contractors. (Baron’s South work orders over the last 10 years are attached to the end of this article.)
The ledger shows the work ranged from “weekly inspections” generally billed at about $10 or less, to varied fees for repairing leaks, windows, furnaces and roofs, to big-ticket jobs such as replacing rotting wood and related features costing nearly $10,000 in June 2022.
Kristin Schneeman, a District 9 member of the Representative Town Meeting, who spoke at the P&Z’s meeting earlier this month, noted that a committee previously conducted a study of the Golden Shadows mansion. “They found it would take a million dollars just so the building doesn’t fall down,” she said.
Others also wondered about the potential expense of rehabbing the structures.
But Michelle Perillie, the planning and zoning director, told the commission that town engineering and public works staffers have done “a lot of review” and believe the buildings can be renovated.
The discussion prompted zoners to go see for themselves the buildings’ condition and how their adaptive re-use might affect the surrounding open space.
The Planning and Zoning Commission field trip to Baron’s South is set fot 2 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 25, starting at the Golden Shadows mansion, 60 Compo Road South. The public can join the tour, but no comments will be accepted for the record.
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John Schwing, interim editor of the Westport Journal, has held senior editorial and writing posts at southwestern Connecticut media outlets for four decades. Learn more about us here.
Work orders for Baron’s South, from 2015-25, appear below:
There’s something missing from this discussion. In order to support occupancy of the buildings at issue, an entirely new, code compliant access road would first need to be designed, permitted and constructed – that would likely include at least one new curb cut on Compo South, a state route.
It’s disappointing that this effort is being led by people who walk in the dark.
At yesterday’s site visit, not a word was mentioned about Golden Shadows’ special historic status.
Yet the town previously retained a professional to assess and document the building’s value as a historic resource.
Very clearly, the structure’s important interior historic fabric will be destroyed if the proposed use is pursued.
With that said, it’s hard to take this lastest effort seriously – especially after it was revealed at the site visit that neither the police nor the fire departments have yet been consulted. Really? There’s presently NO ACCESS for firetrucks to these buildings. Think that might be a material issue?
In the broader sense, it’s been frustrating to watch the town incrementally ruin Baron’s South over the years.
Instead of asking “what is the meaning of this place?” and building a rational plan from there, we’ve lurched from indifference to sporadic, shallow interest in one piece of the park or the other.
Fundamentally, Baron’s South is an urban forest -which also supports a senior center and some other, attractive dwellings. In capable hands it could be a wonderful part of our downtown campus.
Instead it’s the Land of Broken Toys. What a disgrace.
At the recent P&Z meeting where this affordable housing initiative was discussed, I heard someone from the public state that this proposal should be approved to give our first selectwoman a legacy project that she deserved.
That rationale was as chilling as any I’ve heard before.
Of course, anyone who has followed the Baron’s South saga knows that Mr. Boyd is correct on all points. Residents new to our Town should understand this as well.
The combination of active and passive neglect of Baron South’s unique open space has been intentional over the years. Riverside Park received $500,000+ for a destructive renovation that few cared about, while over many years Baron’s South has received perhaps $25,000 in trivial maintenance expenditures. This tells the tale.
That the Baron’s South expert consultant reports and rehabilitation plan crust with plaque is an insult to the taxpayers who paid for it – and remains a perpetual disservice to the residents (including children and senior citizens) who should be enjoying it all these years.
Town Hall seems inclined for that plaque to eventually disappear these truths in order to mandate taxpayers pay for YET ANOTHER STUDY – this time one determined to better suit their interests.