Third try at ‘intriguing’ plan in Danbury
Developer seeks to convert defunct west side hotel to micro-apartments
DANBURY – A developer is going back to Danbury for a third time to seek approval for a plan to convert a defunct west side hotel into 198 affordable micro-apartments after the plan struck out twice last year over concerns about putting housing in a congested commercial zone.
For developer Dan Bertram, whose seven-year tax break on a new Main Street apartment house was preserved last week by the City Council, it makes sense to reapply for the zoning change to allow the conversion of the Crowne Plaza hotel into studios and one-bedroom apartments. This latest try addresses the last major sticking point that prompted some Zoning Commission members to vote “no.”
“During previous deliberations, certain zoning commissioners and staff expressed concern about the potential for a hotel to be converted into apartments without first requiring a public hearing process,” Bertram wrote to the Zoning Commission in a letter late last month. “The proposed modification addresses that.”
By the term special exception, Bertram is referring to an extra layer of public review in the land use process that requires the Planning Commission to review a proposal and to hold a public hearing before voting. Bertram’s previous zone change requests would have allowed converting the hotel into apartments at his Crowne Plaza property and at one other west side hotel as a right, as opposed to a special exception.
The heart of Bertram’s vision for the 10-story hotel off Interstate 84’s Exit 2 is for studios that rent for $1,250 per month, and three floors of maker space for entrepreneurs and artists –
a vision that even opponents of the zoning change call “intriguing.”
In addition to the special exception provision Bertram is adding, what else is new about his third try to win approvals for a vision he calls “tremendously cool” and a “hell of a proposal”?
A new acting planning director will review Bertram’s latest application, because Sharon Calitro, the city’s top planner, is retiring at the end of February. It was Calitro’s objections to Bertram’s first two proposals that helped influence the city’s Planning Commission to give Bertram negative recommendations. In turn, those negative recommendations required that any approval by the Zoning Commission be by a supermajority of votes instead of a simple majority. That proved to be key in July when Bertram had a majority of five “yes” votes to three “no” votes when Zoning Commission Chairman Theodore Haddad, who represented the supermajority vote Bertram needed, cast the deciding vote, saying “I vote no.”
Also new to Bertram’s third time around with his innovation studios proposal is the composition of the Zoning Commission itself. In November, voters flipped the 6-3 Republican majority to a 6-3 Democratic majority, following a landslide that also gave Democrats control of City Hall and the City Council.
Although votes on Bertram’s Zoning request have not strictly followed party lines, three outgoing Republicans did used their final vote during a Nov. 28 meeting to deny Bertram’s second request for approval, voting in the 5-3 majority, with one Republican absent. That Haddad, a Democrat, changed his mind from July and voted in favor of Bertram’s plan in November was too little, too late.
Haddad reasoned that Bertram’s plan “fulfills the need in the community for this type of housing unit and it can also help the other hotels that have occupancy problems by taking 500 hotel units off the market and strengthening those other hotels.”
“An approval of this would do much more good, because it is really, really needed,” Haddad said shortly before the November vote. “Danbury is (in) really short (supply) of the small (single-room occupancy) units and efficiency units.”