An ongoing legal battle over the development of affordable housing units on 24 North Street could reach a settlement this month when the revised application returns in front of the Planning and Zoning Commission on March 18.
Ridgefield Modular Home Corp., which originally submitted plans for 11 units in four building clusters under the state’s affordable housing law on Sept. 28, 2012, is seeking only three units — one affordable — and one building on the 0.4-acre site located in the R-20 zone.
“It’s in generally the same location as the original house that was on the property,” said town planner Betty Brosius. “They have designed an underground detention and infiltration system to handle the drainage, and will not be replacing the pipe that goes underneath the accessway at the rear of the lot.”
Ms. Brosius added that the board and the commission, and its legal counsel, were ready to go forward with the discussion at Tuesday night’s meeting, but the engineer for the plaintiff had a scheduling conflict.
If the revision plans are accepted and approved, it will end an 18-month debate over the property that has included an almost yearlong litigation between the two sides.
The North Street project, which saw several variations during its review process, was submitted to the planners under the state’s affordable housing law, 8-30g, which allows developers to overstep zoning regulations if 30% of the units are deemed affordable by the state.
The last rejection came a year ago yesterday — March, 5, 2013 — when the planners voted to deny a six-unit affordable housing proposal, citing too many areas of conflict in the application and too little time to resolve them.
Among the chief complaints from commissioners were disturbance to the upland review area and an inadequate drainage system.
“In summary, the commission determined that the proposed project cannot be properly and completely evaluated to determine the extent of the likelihood or degree of a detrimental effect on the health and safety of the future residents and neighboring properties without additional information and detail from the applicant, who refused the additional time needed for review and comment,” the commission wrote in its letter of denial, which was adopted on March 26 and made effective on April 5.
“This is a very confused application,” commissioner John Katz said at the time. “It has schizophrenic qualities in its presentation, although not its presenter, I might add.”