By Thane Grauel

WESTPORT — The Planning and Zoning Commission held a pre-application hearing about a potential zone change for a Cresent Park Road property.

Crescent Park Road is off Crescent Road and Post Road East, in the neighborhood behind Fire Department headquarters. It has about two dozen homes zoned in the Mobile Home Park District.

A pre-application hearing is an opportunity for a potential applicant to get non-binding feedback from the commission and staff. Comments from commission members Monday night were not encouraging.

Irina Aronson, owner of 1 Crescent Park Road, requested the hearing. She said in her application materials that the modular home, constructed around 1982, was nearing the end of its useful life.

She hopes to replace it with a conventionally constructed 2½-story house as is allowed in another nearby residential zone.

“The community is modular homes, not mobile homes,” Yulee Aronson told the commission Monday night. “… They are coming fast and furious towards obsolescence.”

He said there have been discussions with other community members about options, but no consensus reached. So, the pre-application hearing was requested to show what the Aronsons think is more suited for the neighborhood.

“Still a single-family zone but without restrictions on height …” Yulee Aronson said, noting that the neighborhood’s bylaws are more restrictive than the current zoning, allowing only one story.

“There are other opinions within the community that to have this zoning done to allow multifamily construction, which, in my personal view, would irrevocably change the makeup of the community,” Yulee Aronson said. “It would go from owner residents to basically investors and tenants.”

He thanked Planning and Zoning Director Mary Young for preparing a staff report explaining potential options, including one not floated by the applicant, a new text amendment.

“In my analysis, I acknowledge that the two districts have some similarities in that they both have lower lot size requirements than some other districts,” Young said Monday night. “In that Mobile Park District has a 3,000 average lot size requirement, and Residence B has a 6,000 square foot minimum lot requirement.”

“When I dive deeper and ask the question, would such an application, if approved, survive an attack from a legal standpoint, ‘spot zoning’ being the attack, I’m not confident that it would survive that attack,” Young said.

She had a few suggestions, and her preferred option was, “let’s do something new, let’s have a mobile home park district designation that is more approachable and more available to the existing conditions that we find at these two privately owned mobile home parks.”

P&Z member Michael Calise had a few questions, including why the applicant felt justified in asking for a change to long-standing zone for just their lot.

“That clearly works,” Calise said of the zone. “It functioned well for something like 50 years now, well, not quite 50 years. It’ provides housing for housing for moderate-income people, and it certainly does provide an opportunity to build a new house. It clearly states you can build a two-story dwelling with a third, unfinished story, which I presume to mean a basement …”

He said the limit of two stories didn’t concern him, noting there were hundreds, perhaps thousands, of homes in town south of the railroad tracks with the same constraint.

“It’s a free-enterprise methodology for providing affordable housing without state intervention, without bureaucrats,” Calise said. “And if you violate it, if you ask to change it, you are changing it for yourself but you are also changing it for the hundreds of families that come after you, who want a moderate-priced home opportunity, and would be foreclosed out of that opportunity because we’ve changed a working, functioning zone.”

“I’m just not comfortable with this in any way,”

Member Amy Wistreich said she needed to do more research and think the matter out more carefully.

Member Neil Cohn said it is something he’d like to see more information on.

Member John Bolton said he agreed with Young that such an application would not survive a spot-zoning challenge.

“At this point I can’t join in and say that I feel comfortable with this in any way, shape or form, just because there’s too many unknowns right now,” he said. “But, it’s certainly nice to see a pre-app.”

“Is this an individual application for their address?” member Nicole Laskin asked.

“That is correct,” Chair Paul Lebowitz said.

“Then I’m not in favor of that at all,” Laskin said. “That’s clearly spot zoning in my mind.”

Aronson said to apply for a pre-application hearing on behalf of the neighborhood, they needed to obtain a consensus.

“That was very difficult to obtain,” he said. “We applied ourselves pretty much certain that this application would not be accepted but would start the conversation, provide the feedback, that we did receive.”

“Besides Mary Young’s recommendations that are fairly clear, I did not get any clarity on what the commission would see as a viable path forward for the community,” Yulee Aronson said.

He said the zoning as written, is for mobile homes (which have wheels and are portable — modular homes are manufactured off-site and placed on foundations, sometimes with basements).

“In addition to the fact that we have a disconnect between what these structures are, there’s also a stigma, frankly, when people hear that you live in a mobile home park,” Yulee Aronson said.

He suggested it at least be relabeled, even with the same restrictions.

“A benefit would have be gotten for the community,” he said.

Thane Grauel grew up in Westport and has been a journalist in Fairfield County and beyond for 36 years. Reach him at editor@westportjournal.com. Learn more about us here.