P&Z Codes: Problems highlighted, changes suggested

WINSTED — A company hired to review town zoning regulations has cited several areas that may be impeding town growth.

At its meeting on May 11, the Planning and Zoning Commission unanimously chose to hire Graydon Land Use Strategies of Cincinnati, Ohio, to consult with the town in analyzing and rewriting zoning regulations.

On May 29, Sean Suder, who is a partner in the company, issued a report on the company’s review of its zoning regulations.

“We reviewed the planning and zoning regulations for consistency and to determine whether the zoning regulations promote the planning objectives identified for each [geographic] planning area,” Suder wrote in the report.

The geographic planning areas, identified in the town’s zoning regulations, are the Lakes District, Northern and Eastern Winchester, Downtown, High Density Downtown Neighborhoods and the Route 8/800 Corridor.

The last revision of the regulations was made in April 2014.

“The short answer is that the zoning regulations advance the planning objectives in certain planning areas and fail to promote them in others,” Suder wrote. “The zoning regulations more significantly fail to promote the planning objectives identified for downtown and the high-density downtown neighborhoods. In fact, our analysis reveals that they act as a significant barrier to reinvestment in these areas.”

Suder wrote that zoning regulations have had, and are continuing to have, a disproportionately adverse impact on the town’s center and its surrounding neighborhood.

“The biggest challenge for the downtown commercial district is its linear orientation and length,” Suder wrote. “The district stretches approximately 1.5 miles. [With] its length, it is too long to be walkable per the generally accepted comfortable average walking distance of a quarter of a mile. Its length is out of scale for the size of the town. As such, the downtown is actually comprised of numerous commercial nodes stretching from Northwestern Connecticut Community College on the eastern end and around the town green, to approximately Hinsdale Avenue on the western end. The lack of a cohesive, walkable downtown district is a challenge for both businesses and for the surrounding neighborhoods.”

Suder wrote that the town’s existing zoning regulations “disproportionately fail to support the planning objectives for the downtown and high-density downtown neighborhoods.

“Generally, the existing regulations impose too many suburban-style requirements on the more urban development patterns of the town’s core,” he wrote. “For example, frontage, open space, buffer and off-street parking requirements limit the amount of space on a lot for rentable or saleable building square footage, which reduces the ability to achieve higher densities. It also makes adaptive reuse and additions to the existing building stock more costly, if not impractical.”

Suder wrote that the town’s zoning regulations encourage the conversion of existing single-family dwellings to multi-family dwellings.

“This can encourage adaptive reuses and additional density, but it can also erode the single-family nature of a neighborhood and lead to disinvestment,” he wrote. “The town should be more strategic about where it desires to encourage conversions and where it seeks to preserve and promote a single-family character. All of these issues create disincentives to redevelopment and investment in the downtown and surrounding high-density neighborhoods.”

Suder went on to write that the town’s current zoning regulations are better suited to development outside of the town center.

He concluded that the town’s current zoning regulations do not reflect the town’s visions and priorities.

“The existing zoning regulations have an undue adverse impact on the downtown and its surrounding high-density residential areas,” Suder wrote. “The development patterns incentivized and encouraged by the existing regulations do not respect or reflect the current or desired development patterns in these areas. They reflect a more traditional suburban pattern, which creates undue challenges for the town’s core. While improved zoning regulations will not create a market or necessarily catalyze redevelopment, removing unnecessary impediments to redevelopment will make it more possible for a market to emerge. Eliminating as many regulatory obstacles as possible for new investment and reinvestment will create an environment where redevelopment is more welcome and possible.”

In the second part of his report, Suder suggests that the town be divided into two general land use districts.

The two districts would be condensed from several existing districts.

The first district Suder proposes is a town district which would include single family and multi-family homes along with properties and zones in the town center, town gateway and properties that would fall under “production and innovation.”

The second district Suder proposes is a rural and lake district which would include rural, residential and agricultural properties along with properties around Highland Lake.

Suder also gave a list of common regulations that would apply through all land use districts, including regulations that would apply to signs, parking, landscaping, outdoor lighting, wind and solar facilities, open space and adult-oriented establishments.

He did not define or give details on what the listed regulations would include. 

While Suder was not present at the meeting, his recommendations were discussed at the Planning and Zoning meeting on Monday, July 13.

Commission Chairman Craig Sanden said he is impressed with the idea of combining areas of town into a district, but he took issue with some of Suder’s ideas.

“[The idea of] requiring property owners to provide street parking is important and justified, but if you don’t have it how the hell do you do this?” Sanden said. “At best, I do think [Suder’s] plan is much more simplistic than the laborious ones we are presently dealing with.”

Sanden said he would like to have the town’s parking situation addressed.

“I can understand having the developer have as much leeway as possible,” Sanden said. “However, if Main Street is already bumper to bumper from 5 p.m. to 5 a.m., where are you going to put the cars? We don’t have any community lots, and we don’t have alternate parking anywhere.”

In relation to development on Highland Lake, Town Manager Dale Martin spoke about a meeting held by the Highland Lake Watershed Association on Saturday, July 11.

“At the meeting, one of the speakers was [local real estate agent] Bob Moore, who sells a lot of properties on the lake,” Martin said. “Someone asked him, when he is showing properties, what people like and don’t like about the lake. He said that what people like about the lake is the water quality and the ability to have an all-activity lake of that size in our community. The thing they don’t like about it is the proximity of the houses.”

Suder is expected to attend a future commission meeting to discuss his proposals.