Farmington's Town Plan and Zoning Commission rejected all four applications behind the Enclave at the Farmington River on Monday night, ending a nearly four-year effort to build 237 homes along the river between Farmington and Unionville with a unanimous no.
The decision came after a public hearing that ran more than five hours and filled the Town Hall Annex council chambers past capacity, with overflow seating streamed to the pavilion behind the building. When the votes were called near midnight, the commission turned down the zone change, the two regulatory amendments, and the master plan the project needed to advance. The overflow crowd cheered.
For a town that has spent the year debating how much housing to add and where, the answer on this project was not close: not here, and not this.
What the commission actually voted on
The Enclave was not a single yes-or-no question. The commission had accepted the application in April and sent the design through two rounds of architectural review on its way to Monday's hearing. National Land Holdings LLC, the applicant, needed four separate approvals, and Commissioner Robert Canto, serving as acting secretary, moved each one in turn.
The first was an amendment to Section 9 of the town's 2018 Plan of Conservation and Development. The second was a zone text amendment to Article 2, Section 32 of the zoning regulations. The third was a zone change that would have lifted the property's existing designations, business, residential, senior housing, and earth excavation, and replaced them with the Midpoint Development District overlay. The fourth was the master plan itself.
Chair Liz Sanford declared each motion failed. None carried. The commission was one member short on Monday, with Secretary David St. Germain absent, so alternate Robert Ingvertsen was seated to vote in his place.
The project
The Enclave would have put 237 homes on roughly 80 acres between Farmington Avenue and the Farmington River, a stretch that includes a 14-acre pond and a long-dormant sand and gravel operation. The plan called for 79 single-family houses and 158 attached townhomes across three neighborhoods, with a new public road connecting Bridgewater Road to Melrose Drive behind the LDS temple and the River Bend assisted living community.
The developer is National Land Holdings, a subsidiary of Crown Equities, a Minnesota housing company that principals Jack Brandt and Tom LaSalle told the commission has been in business for about 50 years. The land itself belongs to two local owners: the riverfront gravel parcel at 1179 Farmington Avenue to Plant 17 LLC, and the Bridgewater Road frontage to Waterside 10 LLC. National Land Holdings was under contract to buy both if the approvals came through.
The homes were not cheap. Attorney Robert Reeve, of Scully and Reeve in Unionville, and the applicant's consultants laid out a price ladder the applicant's own figures put at $475,000 for the rental townhomes, about $650,000 for the for-sale townhomes, and $800,000 to $950,000 for the single-family houses along the river.
Why the town said no
The opposition was organized, and nearly everyone who stepped to the microphone opposed the project. Bruce Polsky, the Town Council's District 1 representative and its liaison to the commission, told the room the council had voted against the project on June 9, and that the vote was unanimous. "There are several compelling reasons why letting this go forward is a very bad idea," he said.
More than 70 written comments were entered into the record, most opposed, and dozens of residents spoke over the course of the night, in person and online. Their objections clustered around a few themes the commission would echo in its own deliberations: traffic on an already congested Route 4, the risk of building beside a river that carries a federal "wild and scenic" designation, flooding, wetlands and wildlife, and the capacity of Noah Wallace Elementary School.
The commissioners landed in roughly the same place, and they were careful to separate the parcel from the plan. "I would love to see something in this area because it is a great piece of property, but I don't feel this is the right approach or the right project for this area," Sanford said.
Commissioner Josh Davidson put the distinction plainly. "I am not opposed to a residential development on some parts of these parcels. I am opposed to this development," he said, adding later, "I don't think it's the right plan." Commissioner Lisa Fagan was blunter: "We're trying to solve a problem by making Farmington not Farmington anymore. And I just, I'm totally opposed to it."
A recurring point in the deliberations was that the Midpoint Development District was designed for mixed-use development, and that a project of houses, townhomes, and a walking trail did not deliver the commercial component the district was built to encourage. Several members also noted that the town is already rewriting its Plan of Conservation and Development, and questioned amending it now for a single applicant.
The developer's case, and the argument that outlived the vote
National Land Holdings did not arrive empty-handed. Its consultants argued the plan was less than half as dense as the 199-unit project already approved next door, known as the launch, and that approving the Enclave would permanently retire the gravel operation, preserve a river buffer of at least 100 feet, and generate roughly $1.65 million a year in net revenue for the town, according to a fiscal study by Goman and York Property Advisors.
Reeve pressed the point in his closing. "I urge you very strongly to approve this master plan," he said, framing the project as no different from the Westfarms mall, Devinwood, and other developments that drew fierce opposition before they were built and the town kept growing.
He also raised the argument that has outlived the vote. The Enclave, Reeve stressed, was a market-rate proposal, not an affordable-housing application filed under Connecticut's 8-30g statute, which sharply limits a town's discretion to say no. One resident, Jeff Apuzzo, spoke in favor for the same reason, warning that a denial could invite a far denser 8-30g project on the same land later. "I encourage you to work with the developer," he said. Commissioner Davidson acknowledged the risk was real, while noting the town is close to the 10 percent affordable-housing threshold that would ease it.
Whether the developer appeals, returns with a smaller plan, or walks away is unsettled. LaSalle declined to say what the company would do next.
Worth noting, too, is a gap the numbers never quite closed: the fiscal and school projections were modeled on 228 units, nine fewer than the 237 the commission actually reviewed, a discrepancy a resident flagged and the applicant did not resolve.
Also before the commission
Before the hearing, the commission worked through a routine consent agenda. It approved new signs for Burke Aerospace on Hyde Road, a tenant sign at 504 Main Street, and a rooftop sign for the boutique Joy Susan at 769 Farmington Avenue. It signed off on a roadway and parking reconstruction at Winding Trails, and on a site plan for the former Barnes and Noble at 1599 Southeast Road, which is being converted into a Goldfish Swim School, a KidStrong, a Cold Stone Creamery, and a jeweler.
Town Planner Shannon Rutherford also updated the commission on the Plan of Conservation and Development rewrite, which is being folded into the town's strategic plan, with a consultant expected to be selected later this month. Whatever that plan eventually says about the riverfront, the ground it governs has not changed. For now, the 80 acres by the river remain zoned for gravel, and the developer told the commission the operation still has about a decade of it left.
This coverage is supported by Farmington Storage, 155 Scott Swamp Road, the only storage facility in Connecticut with Museum air. The Mercury covers slow civic processes that produce durable things, and a five-hour zoning hearing is nothing if not slow and civic. Farmington Storage preserves what matters at institutional grade. What you keep there is your business. 860.777.4001 📦
Jack Beckett has covered Farmington's Planning and Zoning Commission long enough to know the difference between a master plan and a special permit, and long enough to know that a five-hour hearing is a form of civic exercise. He is on his third coffee. He has read all four motions. ☕
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