The Board of Selectmen during its most recent meeting approved a $29,500 contract with a Hartford-based firm to assess the viability of three sites for potential affordable housing.
The firm, Amenta Emma, worked as the architect on the redeveloped Canaan Parish “so they have both experience working with our Housing Authority and working in affordable housing,” according to Krista Neilson, a member of the Affordable Housing Committee and chair of its Project Development Subcommittee (as well as secretary of the Planning & Zoning Commission).
Under its agreement with the town, Amenta Emma will “review three sites that the subcommittee has selected as potential options for future affordable housing development,” Neilson told the selectmen during their regular meeting, held Aug. 19 at Town Hall and via videoconference. She referred to three municipal parking lots—the Lumberyard Lot, Locust Avenue Lot and Richmond Hill Lot.
Neilson continued: “We’re talking about a larger affordable housing development, on the scale of something like a Canaan Parish. Maybe a little smaller depending on our needs. And so we need an architect to help us review each of these sites, figure out how many units could be built on each and what type of configuration, so that ultimately—with both the townspeople’s help and the elected officials’ help—we can narrow it down to a site that we’d like to pursue hopefully for certificate of occupancy by 2032, which is when we anticipate needing a future moratorium, new construction for a future moratorium.”
She referred to a four-year block of relief from state law 8-30g. Under that law, in towns where less than 10% of all housing stock qualifies as affordable, developers who propose projects where a certain number of units are set aside to rent at affordable rates may appeal to the state after a local P&Z Commission denies their applications. New Canaan received three such applications when its last moratorium lapsed in July 2021, at Weed and Elm Streets (102 units), Main Street (20 units) and Hill Street (93 units). P&Z denied all of them and the applicant appealed in each case. A state Superior Court judge earlier this year denied the developer’s appeal of P&Z’s denial in the Main Street case, then upheld the appeal at Weed and Elm. The Hill Street case has not yet been adjudicated, according to Connecticut Judicial Branch records.
The Affordable Housing Committee is charged with developing proposals to chain together additional moratoriums (the current one will expire in 2028) by creating more affordable units. According to Neilson, the Committee believes that the town’s purchase of the “Avalon” housing complex on Lakeview Avenue, as well as “carryover” units from prior projects “will get us what we need in 2028.” Some 75 to 80 units would need to be constructed to obtain another moratorium in 2032, she said.
First Selectman Dionna Carlson and Selectmen Steve Karl and Amy Murphy Carroll voted 3-0 in favor of the agreement with Amenta Emma.
They asked whether the town had an idea of how many affordable units Riverwood would yield (to be decided), how much it would cost to convert 20 Riverwood units from market rate to some subsidized level (not sure) and whether a three-dimensional model of a new 8-30g development ultimately would be produced under the new agreement (yes).
Neilson said a future model would demonstrate a development’s “massing”—in other words “it would be taking up this much of the site, it would be this many stories tall and certainly we’re obviously as citizens of New Canaan very aware of what we think will fit well in New Canaan.”
“So we’re not looking to design something that doesn’t,” Neilson continued. “That will certainly be a huge part of our conversations. We haven’t exactly talked about the process to get from three to one, but like I said, I’m assuming it’s going to include public involvement and also elected official involvement. Then once we get down to that one, we will have a general massing scheme that then could be taken further by Amenta Emma, or a future architecture firm that the town decides to go with if we decide this site is a go.”
Murphy Carroll asked about Morse Court as a “fourth” potential site—identified as a possible location by a well-known city planner who toured New Canaan last year and made recommendations about improving walkability and other things.
Neilson provided some background on the Committee’s work by way of responding, noting that starting in 2024, she worked with the town’s GIS provider to request a map and spreadsheet of all town-owned and state-owned properties in New Canaan, as well as privately owned properties over five acres.
“And that was 295 properties in the town,” she said. “We then whittled it down to those that have access to public water and sewer, and that brought us to 43 properties, and then we scored them, giving them negative points—negative one point if they’re in the flood zone, if they’re in a wetland, positive one point if they were within what we call ‘walking distance’ or a quarter of a mile of a park, another point if they’re within a quarter mile of the school, and another point if they’re within a quarter mile of downtown.”
Morse Court didn’t make the top-3 based on that analysis, though it was probably fourth and “I definitely would consider it a second tier property that we should look at in the future,” she said.
Keep up the good work, P&Z AHC and Amy, Dionna & Steve! Many supporters watching with interest.