By John H. Palmer
I have a buddy who wants to do the same old thing every time I visit him in Westport: Go to the Black Duck to drink Bud Light and reminisce about the glory days when we were lifeguards together.
Nothing against the duck. It’s a great place. But in addition to being a writer and editor, I’m also a bartender from the city and a bourbon guy, so I like to seek out trendy new places where I can check out a new cocktail, and having spent a good portion of the last decade in Boston, I’ve grown used to paying a couple extra bucks for a good drink.
Still, I usually cave in to his need for comfort and to hark back to the older times, which sadly is sinking further into the past faster than I’d like.
There are those people who don’t want to let go of the past, and as I sit through planning sessions for The Hamlet, I can’t help but worry about the old timers who like things just the way they are. Saugatuck is a unique village, in that it still has that tiny waterfront community vibe, with locals who prefer to walk to the post office or their local bakery for a bite to eat, and they don’t want to pay for parking.
They begrudgingly share their community with the commuter traffic that is inevitable being so close to I-95 off ramps, a railroad commuter crowd that parks daily in their backyards, and the sound of traffic over the river on the highway bridge.
It reminds me of the Springdale community of Stamford, where my father grew up. It hasn’t changed much, but my father loves to tell me the stories of how he remembers downtown Stamford when there was still farmland there. Now, it’s New York, Jr.
More questions than answers
During a session last Monday where planners heard peer reports about traffic, parking, and environmental remediation, it seemed like the public had more questions than the developers had answers — and answering questions is why they were there.
The concerns of Saugatuck residents are legitimate. For instance, what would happen to the on-street, free parking for businesses that Saugatuck enjoys? How will increased commercial traffic from delivery vehicles be managed, especially with a streetscape that is being designed with the pedestrian in mind? How will contaminated soil and poisonous dust be dealt with during construction, when tons of soil underneath a dry cleaner and other businesses will need to be removed?
Much of the explanation about the development seems to be on the fly. Most of the parking in the planned garages of The Hamlet would be reserved for tenants of the apartment building, a common perk used to encourage occupancy of these so-called live/work communities. That doesn’t leave many parking spaces for visitors who want to go to a restaurant or attend an event at the planned barn building. Vehicles would be queued up in the garages until a valet can find a parking spot for overflow, and in busy times there’s no guarantee that vehicles waiting for a spot wouldn’t be forced to back up onto local streets.
The answer? Send them over to the railroad parking lots where they can walk over. I’m sorry, but if I’m planning to spend money on dinner or a show in a fancy new area of town, I’m going to want to park in a covered, secure garage, not a train station lot a half mile away.
Representatives for the Hamlet didn’t have ready answers for these and other important questions, and in fact, some of them seemed to be taken completely off guard when pushed for an answer by planners and members of the public. When you’re talking about perhaps the most extensive municipal development in Westport’s modern history, with the potential to completely change the aesthetic and landscape, not to mention the population of an entire community, that is simply not acceptable.
Are Westporters ready for a city within Saugatuck?
Washington Street in South Norwalk
I’ve said many times that I am a proponent of sensible development and progress, but this feels a bit like a developer is trying to plunk the SoNo area of Norwalk into the middle of Saugatuck, with an aim at attracting young professionals with a lot of money to burn. It’s no coincidence that the planned community will be located right next to the train station, so residents who commute to New York can walk over to their daily commute and then spend money when they come back home.
One only needs to take a trip down West Avenue in Norwalk, where the old YMCA and smaller shops have been replaced with Waypointe, a huge live/work community with fancy restaurants, overpriced apartments, and a large mall. It’s all happened quickly, and many Norwalkers are rightly worried about increased traffic, diminishing real estate, and a general feeling that they are fighting a losing battle against developers looking to make money.
SoNo certainly has its charms, with lots of good restaurants, bars, and crafty stores, but that district has been built up over decades, and with thoughtful development the city turned what once was a seedy, drug-infested area in the 1980s into the beautiful and touristy Washington Street that it is now.
Make no mistake, however. With development comes the inevitable rise in vehicular traffic, rowdy pedestrians that have had a bit too much to drink, and visitors from out of town. Attorneys for ROAN Ventures can talk all they want about traffic calming features such as reducing Riverside Avenue by 25 percent, or provide estimates of the number of cars that will enter and exit the parking garages at any given time. Those talking points do little to hide the reality.
What they won’t be able to predict will be the number of young people who will be traipsing around Saugatuck looking for a place to drink — and the noise they will make doing so. They won’t be able to foresee the aggressive drivers who will endanger pedestrians when they get frustrated and speed away because they can’t find a parking space. And when bars let out and intoxicated patrons get rowdy, it will be the police that have to deal with closing local streets to make sure everyone gets out of town. We can predict all of this; all it takes is a drive through South Norwalk on a Friday night to see it play out in real time.
Lastly, when landlords are collecting high rents for apartments and commercial tenants, they aren’t really going to be able to do anything to help the local residents whose real estate values and quality of life diminishes.
Progress can be a good thing, and I think Saugatuck 2.0 can be lovely, if done tastefully with a nod to the past as well as the future. Just don’t leave out the old timers who like things the way they are; they, too, have a voice in this. Respect their voice with the answers they deserve, in a language they can understand.
John Palmer is editor of the Westport Journal, and has covered community news in Fairfield County and Massachusetts for over 30 years. He can be contacted at jpalmer@westportjournal.com.
John, thank you for your thoughtful, insightful and accurate commentary on the current Roan Development application for the Hamlet at Saugatauck project.
For those of you new to the topic, the Hamlet is a 147,338 SF mixed use project spread over 3.38 acres and includes 10 new buildings. The buildings include a luxury hotel, event space, high end condominiums, a private club of some sort and retail establishments. And, two underground garages. Overall, It will create density, scale, traffic and traffic chokeholds in a major transportation zone, more than any other project in the history of Westport.
Tonight, the Westport P&Z should vote and reject the Roan proposal, and encourage them to come back once four conditions have been met.
1. The developers present the P&Z and Westport with a detailed and accurate SCALE MODEL of their plans. Any other project of this scale would have that. Roan has had more than two years to get this done, but they skipped that step. The only conclusion one can have is that they are scared to show us in scaled detail just how large and imposing the Hamlet will be. And they may say a “model is expensive”. Well, building the Hamlet will be 100’s of millions of dollars; they can afford a model.
2. The developers need to come to Westport with a better, and more thought out parking and traffic plan. And that plan should not include the elimination of 47 current, free, parking spaces that people use now to visit establishments like Tarantino and Harvest. Nor should it include the narrowing of Riverside Avenue by 25%.
In the Peer Review, the Traffic Consult stated that he had concerns of the potential inability to timely park and unpark cars in the planned “concierge” garages wpuld result in backups that increase traffic flow.
3. The developers need to come back with architectural plans that in terms of size and scale, are more in keeping with what they used in 2002 to get the P&Z Text Amendment approved. Now, when you compare the drawings and schematics side by side, it seems clear that they
used one aesthetic and design standard to get the zoning approval, and another standard today to seek building permit approval. (John – it would be very useful if the Westport Journal published these pictures and schematics.)
4. In 2022, the developers touted that there would be increased Saugautuck River access and river views in the district. When I look at the schematics and plans, I don’t see that at all.
There are many other issues, but these four alone are reasons to reject Roan and ask them to come back with plans that is a “win win” for Westport and the developer.
Rick Smilow
Well-stated by John and Rick. I support your positions wholeheartedly.
As an “old timer,” thank you Mr. Palmer for your nod to us.
It isn’t that I don’t want things to change; I agree 100% that that area needs to be brought back to life.
But I do want it to be done in keeping with Westport’s own, unique vibe.
As you say, we are not SoNo, nor should we be.
Nor, really, do we have the infrastructure to be.
And thank you to Mr. Smilow for your continued suggestion that Roan build a scale model of The Hamlet.
It’s important, I think, to have that model include a bit of the area around it, so we can really understand its impact.
The Developer was asked, repeatedly, during the Text Amendment process to provide a scale model. They refused.
Unless and until a scale model is produced, the public and the Commissioners charged with ruling on the application, cannot possibly have a comprehensive understanding of the scale and density of the planned project.
The hotel buildings will shade Riverside Ave all morning. The ginormous “barn” building and 21 Charles will shade Luciano Park pretty much forever.
We need to see the forest from the trees and not be beguiled by the purported “New England aesthetic.”
Let’s also recognize that hundreds of cars leaving their garage on Franklin St will cross Charles Street and continue on Franklin to Saugatuck Ave. The residents of that road face an endless procession of vehicles. Perhaps that doesn’t matter to the Developers as they are likely to punt their affordable housing units to that street.
There are real consequences for both area residents and commuters that must be thoroughly and properly addressed.
Westporters and more so residents of Saugatuck and close residents and businesses surrounding what is this new “Hamlet” should think and practice is a large helping of “Common Sense”!
First and foremost what they should realize and REMEMBER is developers develop for their profits and asset appreciation, not the surrounding community! If it achieves these two goals for the developer and not the community – “So what”!
Second, like common sense appreciation points out so easily,
” you really can’t and should not try to put 25lbs in a 5lb box” It won’t work!
Third, we must realize that to many times local and state government who run constantly on deficits and the opportunities to raise property tax values and increase sales and general taxes sway their final acceptances and approvals of “Hamlet” like mistakes to solve their poor efficiencies and overspending!
We must keep FORESIGHT and the value of COMMON SENSE on the APPROVAL TABLE facing ALL now!
Read the simple three common sense points above and think carefully through your actions to justify and approve such a project!
Kinda helps you see the Forrest through the TREES!