A group home for six disabled adults, planned by the service organization Ability Beyond on a half-acre at the corner of Halpin Lane and Prospect Ridge, is making progress through the bureaucracy, moving toward a town meeting that will eventually be needed to approve the use of the town-owned site.
“I, for years, have felt that was a wonderful location for a group home,” First Selectman Rudy Marconi said Monday.
“And given the serious need not only in our community but in the entire state of Connecticut for this type of housing, it’s a wonderful project that we can move forward with and provide for in our community.”
At the last selectmen’s meeting in November, he’d told the board that the zoning for a group home was in place, and Ability Beyond was working on plans to build a home for six handicapped individuals.
“We’re extremely pleased the town of Ridgefield has given us this opportunity,” said Kim Bragoli, director of development at Ability Beyond, the Bethel-based organization that serves some 2,300 disabled people in Connecticut and New York.
“A very preliminary meeting was held with the town building department and fire marshal to review conceptual plans for a six-bed home,” she said.
“Town officials gave us positive feedback on the plans. We will continue to work with them as plans are detailed to make sure we meet or exceed town expectations.
“The home will feature an accessible design that incorporates our best practice model based on the physical, cognitive, social, and emotional needs of those in our care.
“We pride ourselves on providing the individuals we serve with the opportunity to live in homes that truly feel like ‘home’ and are a part of residential neighborhoods, allowing them to truly be a part of their community.
“Our best practice design will incorporate an accessible floor design, the latest in technology and adaptive equipment, and will be able to truly serve people throughout their life spans.”
Ability Beyond currently operates two homes in Ridgefield.
For many years the organization has had a house off Ritch Drive that serves people with traumatic brain injuries.
“There are five to six people in that home,” Ms. Bragoli said.
“And we have another, smaller home in town. It’s a little bit of a different model. It’s more of an apartment style: There’s two young women who live together. That’s on Prospect Street.
“They’re within walking distance of the village, can do their own shopping and social activities,” Ms. Bragoli said.
“Then, we just opened a third home in Georgetown that supports three young men all on the autism spectrum.”
Most of the group homes Ability Beyond operates have 24-hour staffing, and this would likely be the plan for the new home at Halpin and Prospect Ridge.
“In our homes we have a rotating schedule of staff that provide 24-hour support,” Ms. Bragoli said.
“It depends on the level of need,” she added. “We also have more independent models of care.”
At the Ritch Drive residence, many of the staff who work in the home have been there for years and years.
Ability Beyond works with different state agencies to serve people with a wide range of physical and mental difficulties, and Ms. Bragoli said the organization didn’t know yet what population the new group home would serve.
“Decisions on the selection process for who will reside in the home will be determined over the winter,” she said.
“We try to group people together based on similar disabilities, so it’s really a match — people who can live well together.”
There is definitely a need.
“The state has a huge waiting list of people,” Ms. Bragoli said.
Mr. Marconi said discussions he’d had with Ability Beyond President Tom Fanning had focused on the situation of older special needs people whose parents have died.
“Specifically what we talked about is people of my generation, with special needs, whose parents have now passed on that have taken care of these people for all these years, have a need not only for housing but for the care that comes along with the need for housing.”
Mr. Marconi said that in thinking of the town-owned land as a site for a group home, he’d originally envisioned working with the Ridgefield-based organization that operates Sunrise Cottage on Sunset Lane.
“A Sunrise Cottage II, but that just isn’t in the cards right now,” he said.
“It’s a major project to take on, with a major financial requirement that the timing isn’t right for, right now,” he said. “But Ability Beyond, being a much larger organization, did not have the concerns about moving forward and have expressed willingness to do so.”
Building a group home on the town-owned site will require some kind of land transfer — a sale, a long-term lease — that would give Ability Beyond control of and rights to build upon the half-acre property.
Exactly how the transfer will be proposed to voters is still under consideration.
“That’s what we’re working on now. That determination has not been made,” he said. “Whether it’s a land lease of 99 years — probably it will end up being that — that needs to be determined by the Board of Selectmen.
“And, yes, there will be a need for a public hearing and a town meeting,” he said. “It’s required by charter, any time we lease or sell property.”
In October the Planning and Zoning Commission amended its regulations in a way that, among other things, clarifies that a group home would be legal on the Halpin Lane site, or potentially other locations on Prospect Ridge.
Under the changes, the zoning regulations now distinguish between two Age Restricted Housing Districts, one on Prospect Ridge by Halpin Lane and the other on Route 7 that includes Laurel Ridge, Ridgefield Crossings and the Regency at Ridgefield.
The “ARHD-1” zone on Prospect Ridge was amended to permit a single-family home with a minimum size “lot or lease area” of 20,000 square feet, or about half an acre.
Under state statutes, a “community residence that houses six or fewer mentally retarded persons and necessary staff” must be treated as a single-family home, which means that only a zoning permit from the town planning office is required — not a special permit requiring a public hearing and a vote of the Planning and Zoning Commission.