City housing calls for planning, not politics

An undated unsigned flier with false and misleading information about Zoning Board Text Change 221-20 was circulated to generate senseless opposition. Understanding the housing situation in Stamford in a broader context helps demonstrate just how senseless.

Interstate-95 and Urban Renewal destroyed thousands of housing units (we almost fell below 100,000 people and lost millions of federal dollars) while we have since added 18,000,000 square feet of offices. A small group in Shippan, fearing housing near them, created a text change that removed residential uses from industrial zones (#65018).

Instead, they got a 800,000square foot office complex with peak-hour traffic streaming through residential streets.

Every home in any industrial zone, including the entire South End, was made nonconforming. New housing was prohibited, property values plummeted, homes were lost to industrial uses, and conflicts created. The result is a land use imbalance: housing became less affordable; traffic became worse; and downtown became lifeless after 5 p.m.

Decades of initiatives have been aimed at correcting this imbalance. Early housing efforts failed while progress has been made over the last decade. The opposition seek to undermine the rebalancing efforts to allow housing in two areas of C-D (Designed Commercial) zoned land on Long Ridge Road.

Residential use was allowed on C-D land at the former Dorr Oliver headquarters property on Havemeyer Lane.

The Zoning Board, concerned about the potential effect on schools, excluded C-D properties on state roads.

Board of Education studies have proven that multifamily residential complexes add few school children. Here are some of the flier’s misrepresentations:

1. “The Zoning Board approved regulations...” NOT TRUE. The public hearing had not concluded. It compounds this lie with the typical negative rant about the lack of public input during the public participation portion of a public process that continued for six months.

2. The text “would permit, throughout the City ... as of right construction of multifamily housing in traditionally single-family neighborhoods.” NOT TRUE. No single-family zone was included. Only two C-D areas are eligible for residential use. There are 10 neighborhoods outlined in the Master Plan. One has C-D zoned land that was affected.

3. It would mean “precluding public participation” NOT TRUE. All site plan applications require public notice, neighbor mailings, and public hearings.

4. It is “not consistent with the Master Plan.” NOT TRUE. Residential use is allowed in MP Category

This means that jobs, shopping, health care, recreation, religious, schools, industry, institutional, transportation, and multifamily housing all compete for just more than one-quarter of our land area.

8 (Mixed Use Campus). The Planning Board’s unanimous approval said it was “compatible with the neighborhood and consistent with the 2015 Master Plan” which requires that it “shall result in no net increase in traffic impact compared with office development.” ... “and that any approval be based on (1) compatibility with adjacent uses and residential areas, (2) superior design including landscape design to buffer this use from adjacent residential uses, (3) superior traffic management.”

5. It would allow “accessory apartments.” NOT TRUE. 221-20 has no reference to accessory apartments.

6. It claimed, “overcrowding our schools” NOT TRUE. This was addressed above.

7. It would “add traffic and congestion.” NOT TRUE. Offices generate more peak hour traffic than housing. Compare any housing complex and similar sized office complex at rush hour. Preventing housing instead of office makes zero sense if your concern is really traffic.

8. Other inaccuracies include the game plan: “we need owners of 300 properties” to appeal to the BOR. That is why most of the petition signatures were invalid. They were “throughout the city” not proximate to the specific areas affected, as required by law.

These lies serve to make important land use decisions about politics and not long-term planning. They ignore our city’s housing needs.

Almost 70 percent of Stamford’s land is zoned single-family and park land. This means that jobs, shopping, health care, recreation, religious, schools, industry, institutional, transportation, and multifamily housing all compete for just more than one-quarter of our land area. Yet opponents use false narratives, conflated arguments, and criticize the Zoning Board for not agreeing with their misguided tactics.

The Zoning Board members didn’t create the imbalance we have. They just spend countless volunteer hours trying to correct it. Instead of attacking them we should just thank them.