The Planning and Zoning Commission held the first of two public hearings Thursday night on its proposed incentive housing overlay zones.
About 25 residents attended the meeting. A common theme — increased traffic on Route 67.
Members of the Oxford Planning and Zoning Commission are considering creating the zones as a way to map out where affordable housing in town could be built. Oxford has weak affordable housing regulations at the moment.
Background
With weak regulations, town officials say housing developers can try to force housing where ever they want. If the town says no, the developer files a lawsuit and looks to state law for relief. Oxford lost one such lawsuit — Garden Homes — and the judge specifically criticized the town for having weak regs.
Having affordable housing overlay zones will give Oxford more control over the placement of affordable housing, officials say.
The People
Thursday’s hearing was held at Town Hall, and will be followed by another one Aug. 18.
The town has identified a number of locales along the Route 67 corridor that could be handle affordable housing, whether it be condos or townhouses where a percentage of units would be classified as affordable.
Residents who spoke, however, worried about what additional cars and curb cuts would do to Route 67, a road that sees many crashes.
“We lost someone there the other day,” said George Temple, the GOP-endorsed candidate for First Selectman, who spoke about the accidents on Route 67, one of which last Friday led to a death in a hospital this week.
Some residents who spoke questioned how much traffic would be generated by the townhouse units that the Planning and Zoning Commission envisions for three spots on the Route 67 corridor.
Those spots are the Haynes quarry, the Tommy K’s Plaza area and the land on Route 67 nearby the American Legion, near the Seymour border.
Those parcels are now zoned for commercial use but the Planning and Zoning Commission wants to overlay an incentive housing zone over the top of that, so that the land developers can develop 60 percent as townhouses and 40 percent as commercial.
Of the townhouses, a minimum of 20 percent would be set aside as affordable, under state law. The others would be sold as market rate.
They would not look any different to the naked eye — and they’re not federally subsidized or Section 8, false rumors spread during the 2009 election.
The density of the proposal did not ring favorably with Tanya Carver, of Keep Oxford Green, which opposes high density housing in the town.
Carver told them, and said during a brief interview outside the meeting hall, that they need to look at affordable single family homes instead.
“I know there are developers who could build energy efficient affordable housing,” she said, hoping to steer the commission away from the townhouse concept.
Several other speakers spoke about their concerns of traffic on Route 67 and density as well.
Frank Fish, a consultant with BFJ Planning in Manhattan, who is helping the commission write the overlay zone, answered the density question by saying that studies show townhouses generate far fewer school children than single family homes.
School children would be a burden on the local school system and townhouses keep that to a minimum, he said.
Fish also said on traffic, that a mixed residential and commercial use of the land would produce far less traffic than a strictly commercial use.
There were heated moments during the hearing.
At one point, Temple told the commission they should proceed slowly with these plans, which he opposes. Planning and Zoning Commissioner Pat Cocchiarella countered that the state law on affordable housing requirements in the suburbs has been on the books 20 years, and Oxford has ignored it up until now.
The three sites that were selected were also questioned by some of the speakers.
Fish told them that the sites were selected because they have both sewer and water capability, and fit within the areas the state has specified are suitable for incentive housing, meaning, not rural.
Not all the public speakers were against the project though. Resident George Oleyer had some questions about where the zone was being placed, but in the end agreed it will be useful.
“People are living in their parents houses because of the economic times, and can’t afford a mortgage payment,” he said, saying people deserve some affordable housing.
Affordable housing does not mean low-income housing, Fish pointed out, but rather, housing that is affordable to a person or family earning 80 percent of the median income for the Oxford region, which he said the 2010 Census showed to be $91,000.
That means workforce housing, he said, for working professionals like teachers and police officers who want to live in town but cannot afford a market rate home.
Click here to read Democratic First Selectman candidate Joseph Calabrese’s take on the issue.
Click here to read Tanya Carver’s blog on the issue.
Click here for a town-sponsored website with more information on overlay zones.
