ANSONIA – A developer wants to turn the former police station at 2 Elm St. into 12 age-restricted apartments even though the city’s planning & zoning commission rejected two prior conversion attempts.
Fredi Lalaj, who bought the property from the city for $320,000 in 2023, submitted a special exception permit application to the planning and zoning commission March 30. The plans call for a mix of studio, one-bedroom and two-bedroom apartments, as well as two rooms for commercial use in the basement.
The commission scheduled a public hearing over the proposal for 6 p.m. May 18 in the Aldermanic Chambers of city hall (253 Main St).
However, commissioners at the March 30 meeting said they’re skeptical of the new plans, after they previously rejected plans for 15 and then 14 apartments on the property.
Commissioner Dana Haigh said the city’s Board of Aldermen authorized the property sale with the understanding that it would be converted into a data center, not apartments.
“It looks like it was bought under the guise of one idea at a reduced rate and then it was swiftly turned around to now be a different use, and nobody ever made whole on the difference,” Haigh said.
He said the commission should refer the application to the Board of Aldermen for review – and allow them to review the original terms of the sale – before taking any further action.
However, commission chairman Jared Heon said commissioners had already referred Lalaj’s plans back to the Board of Aldermen a year ago.
Multiple Aldermen at the time expressed skepticism over the plans, but the board did not take action.
“We need to just proceed forward, and if there’s some type of injunction by the board and we’re advised to proceed that way by corporation counsel, then we take it up at that time. But until then, I think we should treat this as any (application),” Heon said.
Thomas Lynch, the attorney representing Lalaj, said he would review the terms of the original sale contract to see if it required a data center.
“I’m going to have to look into that, because obviously, if that was a contingency in the contract, I mean, then the town needs to enforce it,” Lynch said.
The Valley Indy requested the 2023 sale contract from the city through a freedom of information request in December. The city released the requested document on March 31.
The deed contains a restriction which says the property “cannot be utilized for the purposes of low income affordable housing purposes.” However, the deed does not mention a data center.
Click here to view the deed.
Commissioner Bill Phipps said he was concerned about parking under the proposed plans. The submitted plans include 19 off-street parking spaces.
“I’m concerned about the neighborhood. It cannot absorb one more car on that street,” Phipps said.
Under the city’s zoning regulations, the complex would be required to have at least 24 parking spaces.
However, Lynch, the attorney representing Lalaj, pointed to Connecticut’s major housing reform law signed into law last year. That law includes provisions which bar planning and zoning commissions from rejecting applications on the basis of minimum parking requirements in many cases.
“The only thing that I’ll keep in mind is the new public act that was signed that addresses that, especially for a project of 17 units or less, and this falls under that,” Lynch said.
Phipps said Lynch should take a look at the adjacent city-owned lot at 70 Platt St. for parking. Land use administrator Ronda Porrini said city officials are currently considering putting that property up for sale.
Heon also said the application may need to go before the city’s historic district commission, which he sits on, for review. He said he had requested clarification from the city engineer as to whether the property is within the historic district.
Heon said the historic district would be unlikely to grant a landscaping waiver requested in the application.
“I don’t think we will grant a waiver to that, because it has specific historic value, and there’s specific what you can and can’t do,” Heon said.
Lynch said the proposal would benefit the city by adding more money to its tax rolls.
“My only editorial comment is that thing’s just sitting there, the way it is. This is an application to improve it, put it on the tax rolls, bring in tax incomes,” Lynch said.
The property at 2 Elm St. is currently zoned for use as a government building. The special exception permit application seeks to allow a multi-family residential use on the property.
