(One) reason for high housing costs: our P&Z's vision of picket fences and swing sets
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At the last Greenwich Planning & Zoning meeting, the commission honed their feedback on the Greenwich American Inc pre application for 456 residential units on 155 acres in the northwest corner of town.
The property is separated from the rest of Greenwich by I-684 and cannot be accessed from the rest of the Town without crossing into New York state. The property has 586,295 square feet of office space, but much of the 154.5 acre lot is undeveloped.
The proposed residential units – “starter homes” and town homes – would be served by the existing on-site wastewater treatment facility and on-site wells.
Tom Heagney, attorney for the developer, seems to have the answers to the most serious questions:
Heagney said concerns listed in a letter from North Castle town planner Adam Kaufman wrote had been addressed: traffic, drinking water, sewerage capacity and water for fire suppression.
“In [the developer’s hired-gun traffic consultant’s] summary, he said the proposed residential development would have no adverse impact on traffic operating conditions of the street system in the vicinity of the site,” Heagney said, adding that the traffic would be complimentary because office workers are arriving when residents were leaving.
Heagney said the demands for water were well within capacity of the wells on the property. He said SE Miner, who designed the well system and wastewater treatment plant in the 60s, did a study indicating that the two wells on site generate 346 gallons a minute and 550 gallons a minute respectively, for an overall 1 million+ gallons a day.
He said if all 456 units had 3 bedrooms, and each was occupied by two people, the demand for water consumption, plus demand from the offices and for irrigation, would add up to 417,000 gallons per day, while capacity was 1,290,000 gallons a day.
He said the sewer treatment facility, could handle 673 gallons a minute, or 970,000 gallons a day, and if all units had 3 bedrooms, that would require 720,000 gallons a day. Adding in sewage from the offices it would total 844,000 gallons a day.
“We thought this was more than adequate to handle sewage flows,” he said.
As for fire safety, Heagney said a conservative estimate of water in the lake on the north side of the building was 490,000 gallons.
“You’d want 1,000 gallons a minute for firefighting purposes, so there is much more capacity there.” He said they could also add water holding tanks for firefighting purposes.
The P& Z did its usual thing and focused on the issues Heagney had just addressed, because that’s what our P&Z always does in a convulsive knee-jerk — they can’t help it, and know not what they do: water! Double the setbacks! Cut the number of units by half! More sewers! But then the Chairman put in her own brilliant thoughts, which demonstrated exactly why, even above the sky-high cost of land, developments cost so much here:
“To me, this is too many units. Its crowded and packed in. When you talked about starter homes we had a vision of little back yards, little houses, and Havemeyer Park [where new houses now sell for $3.5+ Ed] where someone could start a family and have a yard,” said P&Z chair Margarita Alban. “I’d like you to not advance architecturally at all right now. I, personally would like you to not advance, until you look at a lower density – at least something not being attached, not being as high.”
“It looks like the proverbial 8 lbs in the 5 lb sack,” Alban added. “I realize it’s a big property, but it’s not what I had in mind.”
So, single-family homes, each with its own cute little backyard must be built; what about playgrounds for the children and adults? Why don’t you build some of those here too, and damn what they’d add to the cost of a house?
Commissioner Peter Levy asked about planned amenities.
“I’d like to also understand what kind of amenities are going to be offered on site since this (location) is fairly remote,” Levy said.
“To Mr. Levy’s point, if you’re in the middle of nowhere, what is the amenity you need?” Ms Alban said, asking the applicant to provide those details when they return.
Personally, I’d prefer not to see a high-density housing project go up in town, but if we need more housing units, and we do, then a collection of 200 detached cottages is not the way to go — we have enough of a supply of $3 million homes. And this place is on the other side of 684 — we’ll never see, never know that it’s there. North Castle will, but that’s their lookout.
Circling back, the Chairman’s vision for new housing is an old, original one, a vision that’s still shared by planners in California, especially those in the San Fransisco/Silicon Valley area, and that’s a problem.
Build back better.
