About an hour into a Shelton Planning and Zoning Commission public hearing Thursday on a proposed zone change that would pave the way for a 262-unit apartment complex off Bridgeport Avenue, commission chair Ruth Parkins asked the developer requesting it a crucial question.
The developer and his lawyer had described the development — on a 13-acre site behind Planet Fitness and Bertucci’s, and targeted toward young “echo boomers“ and retiring baby boomers — as “upscale” and “amenity-rich,” yet also “affordable.”
“Affordable? Can you define that a little more?” Parkins asked.
Easy, the developer, Michael Bradley, a Ridgefield resident, replied: it would be cheaper than the rest of Fairfield County, “while still being accessible to lower Fairfield County and the employment centers down there.”
“For a thousand-foot unit, which would be a large two-bedroom, you’d be paying about $1,600,” he went on.
And, Bradley added, the project would be “affordable vis-a-vis home ownership.”
Parkins didn’t seem entirely convinced.
“I guess it depends on what kind of a job these young adults have that would allow them to be able to afford a $1,600-a-month apartment,” she said.
Later, commission member Joan Flannery, who works as a teacher in Stamford and said she knows many “echo boomers” herself, put the lower Fairfield County comparison a bit more bluntly.
“They love Stamford because there’s a night life in Stamford,” she said. “They hate Shelton because there is no night life in Shelton. Your apartments are not going to attract the echo boomers at all, I’m telling you that right now.”
“The rental rates in Stamford are more than double what they are in Shelton,” Bradley replied. “While I would like to live near night life or live in Manhattan, some people just can’t simply afford that.”
And attracting those people to their development is a bet Bradley and his business partner, Bill Griffin, are willing to take.
“Fairfield and New Haven Counties have some of the lowest vacancy rates in history,” Bradley said. “Shelton is wonderfully proximate to both those locations.”
And the housing crunch won’t be alleviated any time soon, he predicted, pointing to a study that said there have only been about 925 new building permits for single-family homes in Fairfield County this year.
“There’s just simply not enough housing being created for the number of households being formed,” he said.
Which is where their proposal would come in, they said.
The 262-unit complex they contemplate would be split between eight three- and four-story buildings. There would be 405 parking spaces.
The apartments would have granite countertops, stainless steel appliances, a clubhouse, fitness center, and probably a pool, too.
The plans aren’t too detailed yet because at this point the developers are only proposing a special “Planned Development District” for the site, which is currently zoned for office space.
If successful, they would have to go before PZC again with more specific plans.
One number they did stress: they predict the development, if built, would add at least $400,000 in annual net tax revenues to the city.
They also said the apartments, if built, would only cause “very little impact” on traffic in the area, with about 177 cars leaving the site during the morning rush hour.
And even then, said Patrick O’Leary, a Middletown-based engineer, “we would be able to mitigate that through signal timing improvements.”
They would also seek to widen Bridgeport Avenue and add a dedicated left-turn lane into the complex, modifications which would have to pass state review.
The commission voted unanimously to continue the hearing Jan. 23, at 7 p.m. in the City Hall auditorium.
Six members of the public attended Thursday’s hearing — and three of them signed up to speak about the proposal — but none came out in opposition or support.
Two reserved their comments until the next hearing date. Another, Jeffrey Doolan, who owns Fairchild Heights mobile home park, which borders the property in question to the south, said he was “neutral” on the zone change proposal, but wanted the developer to build a “significant fence” between their property and his.