8-30G housing is an increasingly popular tool of developers

1913 architecture — white, male, and obsolete

All credit to Leslie Yager and her Greenwich Free Press, because she’s the only one sitting through zoning hearings and reporting what’s going on. Nothing good.

Last May Greenwich Planning & Zoning entertained a proposal to develop the rear of 240 Greenwich Ave with a 3 story building containing residential 18 units. 

Neighbors in the residential buildings at 40 West Elm Street testified with concerns about losing sunlight, having to look at the proposed rooftop recreation space and mechanicals, shortage of parking, FAR and traffic.

So they came back, bigger and harder than ever, with the threat of using CT’s “affordable-income housing” law.

A new pre-application has been submitted to P&Z from 240 GA LLC (registered to John J Fareri), represented by attorney John Tesei, that seeks to construct a 6-story, 60-unit building with a total of 96 bedrooms under the state’s 8-30g affordable housing statute, which means the development would be exempt from local zoning in all but rare circumstances, including health and safety. 

Oh, yeah? You didn’t like our first plan? How about this, eh?

Developers have been using 8-30g to threaten and bully their projects through P&Z for years, ever since the law was passed. What’s different today is that it seems that every developer is coming in with an 8-30g project — Joe Pecora is just one of them; John Fareri is the one pushing this one, for instance — though perhaps its most aggressive user. And that will change the town. Liberals like our Ladies of Invisible Greenwich and the rest of the state, which despises our town, will cheer, but others, not so much.