CLINTON

The Planning and Zoning Commission (PZC) voted to deny two applications that would have allowed for the redevelopment of the Victorian Village Inn at a meeting on Oct. 16.

Earlier this summer, Victorian Village LLC, the property owner at 345 East Main Street, filed two applications. One application asked for the commission to create a new floating zone called the Multifamily Adaptive Reuse Zone (MARZ), and another application asked for the zone to be landed at 345 East Main Street. If approved, the eventual plan for the property was to demolish four buildings on the property and renovate the remaining eight buildings into 14 one-bedroom properties. Furthermore, the owner was also proposing a new two-story building on the property with 26 one-bedroom units.

However, at the Oct. 16 meeting, the PZC voted unanimously to deny the two applications. While debating over the first application to create the zone, some commission members were against the idea of creating a floating zone for the property.

A floating zone is one in which the regulations establish specific conditions for what can happen in that zone and under what conditions it can be used — even though the zone isn’t actually on the map at the time of its adoption.

Because of this, it is said to “float” over the map and can be affixed to a certain location only if the PZC determines it would be consistent with the town’s POCD.

In floating zones, the PZC has a greater latitude to deny approval or require changes to the application before approval. Floating zones also rely more heavily on each PZC’s discretion than traditional zones.

While they can be useful for development, they can also be controversial. In 2016, the Clinton PZC allowed for floating zones to be put into the town’s regulations, and a floating zone was then later used to redevelop the property that became the current CVS. The CVS application caused controversy with some members of the public in 2016-’17, partly over the use of a floating zone.

Commission member Beau Clark said that he felt the project was inconsistent with the town’s Plan of Conservation and Development mostly due to having a residential use in an industrial zone as well as the proposed development being too dense, in his opinion. Clark noted the plan called for residential developments on property not fronting Route 1, which the proposed project was. Clark also said just because the town has regulations that allow for floating zones doesn’t mean they need to be used.

PZC member Ellen Dahlgren agreed and said that while she felt the applicant’s plans for the property were an improvement, the use of a floating zone bothered her. Dahlgren said that while towns use zoning regulations to control what uses are allowed, “A floating zone is a way to undermine that.”

Once the commission voted to deny the application to create the zone, the second application to land the zone was required to be denied, which was also done at the Oct. 16 meeting.

Throughout two public hearings, the two applications drew criticism from some members of the public in addition to the PZC members. During the August PZC meeting, a letter from Diana Chase, one of the current residents living at the Victorian Village, was read into the record. In her letter, Chase was vehemently opposed to the plan for the property due to the potential for the rent to increase.

“If this development happens as planned, at least 35 people [will be] left permanently homeless. These people are mostly manual laborers who can’t afford post-COVID rent prices. We go to bed hopeless and wake up more hopeless,” Chase wrote in part.

In speaking at the meeting, Chase noted that even with some potential units designated as affordable housing, that rent price would still be too steep for some current residents to pay.

While sympathetic to the plight of Chase and the other current tenants, the commission said that the issue legally had no bearing on the actual applications before the PZC.

Daniel Ackerman, a representative of Victorian Village, LLC, told the commission at one of the public hearings that he would have tried to work with the current tenants to retain as many as possible and that he would have avoided charging an exorbitant rent if the applications were approved.