An image showing the land where the zone change was requested.
SEYMOUR – The Seymour Planning and Zoning Commission denied a request Thursday (April 11) to change the zoning on three Pearl Street properties from residential to multi-family.
The commission voted 3 – 2 in favor of the zone change.
However, the zone change request faced strong opposition from neighbors who circulated a petition with 47 names.
The town verified the names on the petition and found 31 percent of the people signing were surrounding landowners. That percentage triggered a rule in Seymour land use regulations dictating that a two-thirds vote from the commission was needed to approve anything.
That meant four commissioners had to vote ‘yes’ for the approval to stick.
The zone change covered three properties on about 14 acres: 18, 28 and 32 Pearl St. Most of the land is undeveloped.
Had the commission approved the zone change from R‑18, residential, to MF, multi-family, a developer was considering building 108 apartments in three buildings. The developer needed the commission to grant a zone change to make the site application possible.
The applicant is Second Street Construction, LLC out of Oxford. The company is represented by attorney Dominick Thomas. The zone change was previously rejected 2 – 1 last August, and the applicant has appealed that denial to the Superior Court in Milford.
The newest rejection isn’t the end for the applicant’s plans.
Thomas said his client now plans to develop the property by using the state’s affordable housing statute, called “8 – 30g.” That law allows developers to build housing at densities that would otherwise not be allowed under local zoning, as long as a percentage of the housing is affordable.
“My client will file an 8 – 30g and that will probably up the density by about 25 or 30 percent,” Thomas said. “We will come in with a regulation that they (the commission) will have to adopt that will allow multi-family with 30 percent affordable housing, half of which will be at 80 percent of AMI (area median income).”
Some municipalities in Connecticut are exempt from the state statute if they have more than 10 percent of affordable housing. Seymour, as of the latest data from 2022, has 5.6 percent affordable housing, according to the state Department of Housing.
Nearby Ansonia and Derby, as well as larger cities like New Haven, Waterbury and Bridgeport, all surpass the 10 percent threshold.
During Thursday’s meeting, Seymour Town Planner Keith Rosenfeld recommended the commission approve the zone change.
He said it aligned with the town’s Plan of Conservation and Development, encouraged transit-oriented development to bring people easier access to their jobs and services and provided opportunities for more diverse housing.
Rosenfeld said if Thomas comes back with an affordable housing proposal, it will be up to the commission to determine if the proposal would compromise public health, welfare and safety.
“The applicant would have to really show the need for housing is greater than the disregard of some of the zoning, and we (the town) would have to show the public’s health and safety is compromised.”
However, neighbors testified at public hearings, saying the zone change would eventually result in a housing development too large for an already densely-populated area.
Many of the surrounding properties are modest houses on half-acre plots. The land is near a deli, a restaurant, a barber shop, residential housing, and an apartment complex at the former LoPresti School.
Resident John Livolsi, who spoke against the zone change at previous public hearings, said he remains “cautiously optimistic” about the future of the property.
Livolsi and other residents who live near the three properties expressed concerns that a zone change to multi-family would create more traffic congestion.
“We thought it was a small victory last time (when the commission denied the same zone change last August), but they just keep on bringing this back and bringing it back, but I’ll remain cautiously optimistic,” Livolsi said.
The three properties are next to each other, one housing the former Roberta King estate.
Thomas initially submitted a conceptual site plan with the zone change application.
It showed three, two-and-a-half story apartment buildings on the three properties. Each building would house 36 apartments. The buildings would be about 12,000 square-feet each. There would be roughly 200 parking spaces (roughly 70 or so per building), according to the conceptual plans.
