Multifamily Housing Rules Studied

MANCHESTER, CT - Two days into a six-month moratorium on multifamily housing, the Planning and Zoning Commission met Thursday to talk about what specific multifamily housing issues it wants to study and discuss further. The commission plans to have several special meetings to discuss multifamily housing during the moratorium, which it approved last week.

Toward the end of the moratorium's six months, there will be a public hearing, and there may also be other meetings at which members of the public can ask questions or make comments. Commission Chairman Eugene Sierakowski has said the moratorium's intention is "to give us some breathing room" to consider the regulations on multifamily housing without dealing with applications for it.

On Thursday, he said he'd like to have some statistics about the ratios of multifamily to single-family and renter-occupied to owner-occupied housing in town.

A map that shows where these types of properties are, as well as showing the town's developed and vacant land, would be helpful, Sierakowski said.

Commission member Salvatore Mancini said he's concerned about growing the town's multifamily housing stock beyond the demand for it and the empty units that would be the result.

Commission members also talked about possible benefits to the community of higher levels of owner occupancy compared with renter occupancy, such as better property maintenance, though they noted the difficulty of quantifying such observations.

And they discussed what qualities make a neighborhood desirable, such as low crime rates, a lack of noise, and access to shopping and transportation.

Sierakowski said he thinks applications for residences above businesses, such as the supportive housing project at the corner of Center and Alexander streets the commission approved last year, might deserve more oversight from the commission.

The commission plans to hear from experts on "smart growth" at another special meeting Feb. 12, and from town staff members who will have gathered data about the town's current housing stock at a special meeting Feb. 19.