'You're Ruining Fairfield': Downtown Zoning Changes A Hot Topic

FAIRFIELD, CT — A downtown Fairfield property owner has withdrawn a permit request for a four-story, 55-foot mixed-use development, but is still seeking zoning amendments in the town center, much to the ire of several residents who spoke at a hearing Tuesday.

“It’s just bad for Fairfield, and you’re ruining Fairfield, you really are,” Matthew Hollack said. “I just 100-percent reject all of this.”

The 21,000-square-foot property at 15 Unquowa Road is owned by Lee Forest, who originally requested a special permit to build a structure with retail space, offices, 36 apartments and 54 parking spaces next to the Sacred Heart University Community Theatre. His attorney, Raymond Rizio, withdrew the permit application Tuesday on the grounds that if the requested amendments were rejected, the building project could not move forward as proposed.

Still up for consideration by the Town Plan and Zoning Commission are several potential changes to zoning regulations for the center designed business district, which runs along Post Road from Beach Road to Bungalow Avenue.

The amendments include:

• Changing height restrictions from five stories or 50 feet to four stories or 55 feet with a ground-floor minimum height of 15 feet;
• Removing setback rules on Unquowa Road and Sanford Street;
• Increasing maximum floor area from 200 percent of a property’s lot area to 300 percent;
• Reducing residential parking requirements in a transit-oriented design overlay from 1.5 parking spaces per household with more than one bedroom to 1.25 spaces.

“The changes we’re asking for are not this huge change to the center design business district,” said Rizio, who told the commission the developer used the town’s transit-oriented development study recommendations when drafting the proposed amendments. “Take a step back from hysteria, look at the changes that are being proposed.”

Residents who attended Tuesday’s hearing, held via Webex, worried the amendments could lead to issues with parking and flooding, and change the scale of downtown Fairfield.

“I think you should keep in mind the giant four-story box application that was originally married to this application,” said William Burke, whose office is near the Unquowa Road address. “It’s just going to be giant four-story box, next to giant four-story box, next to giant four-story box.”

Attorney Joel Green, who represented abutting property owner Harold Fischel, noted the town’s transit-oriented development recommendations were published in 2019, before the coronavirus pandemic, and added that the town has recently approved well over 100 residential units on Unquowa Road.

“Let’s tap the brakes on making changes to zoning regulations at this moment,” he said.

After Green’s comments, Forest offered a few spontaneous remarks, noting that Fischel does not provide parking for customers who visit the businesses on his property at 50 Sanford St. Forest also said Fischel has tried to buy Forest out of his land.

“I just hope that the commission will realize that there’s big sharks and little fish, and I’m a guppy in the picture here,” Forest said.

The commission will consider and vote on the proposed zoning amendments at a future meeting.