New Haven Register (Sunday) (New Haven, CT)
Developers push for affordable housing at Shelton plaza
SHELTON — Developers are continuing their push for apartments at Fountain Square, filing an affordable housing application for the Bridgeport Avenue site which is home to commercial, retail and restaurants.
Highview Commercial, the project’s developer, has filed an 8-30g application with the Planning and Zoning Commission seeking to amend the already approved Planned Development District for the property located at 801 Bridgeport Ave. The plans must go through the commission’s public hearing process at a date yet to be determined.
“My client is committed to bringing apartments to the Fountain Square project,” said attorney Dominick Thomas, who represents the developers.
“The proposal is the perfect fit in this location for work/live,” Thomas said. “The governor and CEOs of major corporations are all calling for more housing near employment centers and this project does just that. My client tried with an application that was in line with the Shelton Affordable Housing Plan and would have provided some city infrastructure improvements but that was denied so it has to go the 8-30g route.”
The revised application calls for removal of the already approved hotel and an office building planned for the rear of the site and replacing those with 170 apartments, 30 percent, or 52 units, of which would be designated affordable per state statute 8-30g.
Section 8-30g requires that 26 of the residential rental units be affordable for 40 years to families earning 80 percent or less of the area or state median income, whichever is less. The other 26 residential rental units will be affordable to families earning 60 percent or less of the area or state median income, whichever is less.
There would be 262 parking spaces created for the apartments.
This filing comes only weeks after the Planning and Zoning Commission denied the developers’ original plans to place 145 units on the site in place of the hotel. In that application, the developers agreed to designate 18 percent as affordable.
The developers have since appealed the decision, stating in its filing in Milford Superior Court that the commission’s comments during its deliberations on the Fountain Square apartment application “revealed that they had a pre-disposed opinion against permitting any apartments on Bridgeport Avenue regardless of the evidence.”
This 8-30g filing is the latest twist in the highprofile development, which was first presented to the Planning and Zoning Commission in 2017. The project was split into six phases, and final development plans for all phases were approved separately between 2018 and 2020.
Buildings sat uncompleted and empty until 2022, when construction activity picked up and Panera and Metro Mattress moved onto the site. In the months since, several other businesses have opened, most noteworthy being Chick-fil-A last October.