Hamden Primes Building Pump With PDDs

Hamden storefronts, offices and housing may look a little funkier and taxpayer bills a little lower down the road — if a newly passed policy that eases municipal zoning restrictions pans out as planned.

The town’s Planning and Zoning Commission voted unanimously Tuesday night to add new language to Hamden’s zoning code that allows for the creation of planned development districts (PDDs) within certain mixed-use spaces as well as land owned by universities.

Planned development districts refer to projects that operate independently of certain pre-defined zoning regulations. The idea is to allow developers to set their own standards for their proposed designs and let the Planning and Zoning Commission judge applications in their entirety, rather than basing the project’s fate on its adherence to set-in-stone rules specific to the area the developer is interested in or forcing developers to seek variances from the Zoning Board of Appeals. 

In other words, developers can now request that the town approve a ​“new zone” around a given property to accommodate different kinds of projects.

“I think this is a big moment for the town of Hamden,” Johnson said. ​“In the very short term, you’ll see the impact on the grand list.”

The hope is that establishing a more flexible pathway for developers to pursue unique projects will not only increase the number of developers interested in actually building up the town, but also boost creativity and innovation across upcoming, mixed-use construction.

New Haven, Shelton, Orange, Cheshire, Wallingford, Meriden, Southbury, Branford, Madison, Derby, Middlebury, East Haven and West Haven have established planned developments. New Haven’s Science Park is one example of a zoning application that went through the alternative PDD process, in turn converting old factory buildings into high-tech laboratories and research facilities, restaurants and offices.

The concept has long been talked about in Hamden, which has complicated zoning regulations that many town officials have complained deter economic development. (Read more about that here.) When the Planning and Zoning Commission published their Plan of Conservation and Development in 2019, they wrote that the town should aim to establish a PDD mechanism down the line.

Hamden’s zoning code is currently a conglomeration of often conflicting rules patched together by different administrations. In 2013, the town adopted ​“T‑based” zoning requirements, short for transect or form-based zoning, which enforced new design rules in an attempt to promote aesthetic uniformity (despite the fact that Hamden was, obviously, already full of buildings that were immediately deemed out of code conformity once the t‑zone standards were put in place). Those rules range from limiting parking to the backs of buildings to standardizing the distance that buildings should be set back from the road to even requiring specifics like​​“the first story of all facades shall be glazed with clear glass no less than 30% and shall be glazed at least 50% if a shopfront.” 

The T‑based rules were intended to improve walkability and move towards ​“complete neighborhoods,” following the new urbanist tradition. As Town Planner Eugene Livshitz put it, ​“they have good intent — but they don’t work well when a town is already built out.”

Instead, in practice, developers have had to run around town asking for multiple variances — perhaps to do something like reposition parking lot placement to their liking — or ditch large-scale, complex projects that didn’t fit a strict code of uniformity.

Hamden’s new regulations allow developers interested in properties located within the T‑3, T‑3.5, T‑4, and T‑5 zones (which essentially translates to relatively urban, mixed-use areas in town) as well as owners of colleges and universities to put forward projects they believe should be exempt from zoning requirements. The piece of land must be at least four acres or more.

The burden is on the developer to provide extensive concept plans to the Planning and Zoning commission — check out all of the information that developers will have to hand over to commissioners here. Then, it will be up to the Planning and Zoning Commission to value the plan as a whole.

During Tuesday’s public hearing, some showed up to celebrate Hamden’s decision while others contested the zoning changes, worrying that it would lead to overdevelopment and chaos.

Lawyer Brian Stone of the Pellegrino Law Firm said the proposal ​“benefits the developer who gets to utilize some imagination and flexibility to propose a plan on a grander scale than you could with existing regulations.”

He took a moment to gush about one of his favorite planned development districts — Split Rock Center in Shelton. ​“It’s a development built on a rock hill,” he said. ​“It’s got a couple of restaurants, some retail, some offices, a bank. That’s a site that would have been ​‘til the end of time undevelopable,” he said, under ​“normal regulations.” 

Economic Development Director Erik Johnson also pointed to Shelton as an example of a town that has successfully grown its grand list through zoning changes, and now has a mill rate of around 20 mills — while Hamden’s hovers over 50. 

“I like it ​‘cause I think it’s kind of cool,” Stone said. 

“This will make things easier for developers,” one speaker asserted during the public hearing portion of the meeting. ​“But how is this going to make things better for the taxpayers?”

“Preserving our environment, our neighborhoods, and the character of the town,” she said, are top priorities that might be undermined by the new regulations.

Town Planner Livshitz reflected that ​“it’s not necessarily making things easier for developers, but it’s making things a little bit more flexible.” 

Commissioners pitched in that they are also ​“all taxpayers,” and said their support for the PDD language comes from a desire to lower taxes through upping economic development.

“Long-term residents have moved out because they couldn’t adjust to the tax rate,” Commissioner Charles Elbert stated. ​“The demographics of Hamden are changing dramatically. We don’t want to sit back anymore and be picky about who comes to Hamden. Change is here and we have to accept that. We have to be ready for the future, and help the homeowners who are here and can’t bear the brunt” of growing tax rates.”

Johnson said the incorporation of PDDs into the zoning code will allow ​“complex, multiple-phase development opportunities” to find their way to Hamden — and potentially better and broaden the town’s relationship with Quinnipiac University. 

For example, QU is set to invest $244 million in a plan to expand its Mount Carmel Campus next year. They will be able to approach that growth with more freedom thanks to Hamden’s decision to fine-tune their zoning requirements, laying the groundwork for greater compromise and conversation between the town and the university about the final result.

“The commission will still have control over where these things are gonna go and the impact they’re gonna have,” Johnson promised.