The town Wetlands board rejected Chris Franco's project that would have preserved the houses, and we're getting Joe Pecora's 86-unit low income project instead
/
From this …
to this
In an email to Greenwich Free press, Chris Franco explained the situation:
“We have not been included in their [Franco’s] planning and we only just learned of their plans in the past couple of weeks,” he added. “Our plan was to preserve the historic house, and repurpose it, add on, and have a total of six condominiums. Unfortunately our plan was opposed and did not pass. We are very sad that our efforts to preserve the historic streetscape were not successful.”
Free Press:
Readers may recall Mr. Franco’s proposed development, “Milbrook Crossing,” which would have maintained the historic streetscape from Brookridge to Hillside Rd included 5 Brookridge, 3 Hillside Rd, 7 Hillside and 505 East Putnam Ave. (509 East Putnam Ave, home to Pathways was not included).
Mr. Franco sought to preserve the row of historic homes and develop them into 16 dwelling units with driveways, utilities, drainage, and landscaping adjacent to wetlands and a watercourse.
That proposal was denied in January 2020 after a unanimous 5-0 vote of the Inland Wetlands and Watercourses Agency, who had held four public hearings. Prior to the Wetlands denial, in December 2018 the Historic District Commission unanimously endorsed the project, approving a certificate of appropriateness. The applicants planned to submit the application to P&Z under Historic Overlay which grants incentives in exchange for preservation.
But it was not to be.
Wetlands director Pat Sesto said of 3 Hillside at the time, “It’s in a floodway and 100-year flood plane,” she said. “I have significant concern – it’s not clear how the site would be protected in small events, let alone significant ones.”
At the time of the denial, Chris Franco commented, “It will be a real loss to the community if these fantastic and historic buildings and streetscape cannot be preserved….”Our project is perfectly aligned with the new 2019 POCD, which was pointed out in detail to the Agency. They said however that their concern was only the waterway, and that they were not concerned with other land use priorities of the town. Frankly that seems very strange and not appropriate to us.”
