Fairfielders asked their Town Plan and Zoning Commission to protect downtown from being redeveloped into housing. Connecticut's new housing law — Public Act 25-1, passed in November 2025 with the support of every Fairfield representative in the General Assembly — made full protection impossible. After July 1, 2026, any commercial or mixed-use parcel in downtown Fairfield can be developed as small residential or mixed-use by summary review, without a public hearing, regardless of what the Commission thinks. Legal experts in Connecticut land use are of the opinion that a municipal requirement of ground-floor commercial in downtown Fairfield would be in direct conflict with the intent of the new law, and would be a matter for litigation. We cannot prevent downtown from being developed. Our state representatives and the legislative body in Hartford saw to that.
The only thing the statute left for the Commission to decide is whether new construction on those parcels would still be required to include parking for the residents.
The tool the statute gives them is the Conservation and Parking Mitigation District. Up to eight percent of a town's land area can be designated. Inside a CPMD, the Commission retains its authority to require parking for new residential and mixed-use construction of sixteen units or fewer. Outside one, it does not. The CPMD does not prevent conversion of existing buildings. It does not prevent new construction. It does one thing: it preserves the parking requirement.
On April 7, 2026, Fairfield's Planning Director, Emmeline Harrigan, presented the Town Plan and Zoning Commission with the staff-drawn CPMD map. The map excluded downtown. Asked why, Director Harrigan offered a planning paradox:
"I am very sensitive about Fairfield Center because we have a lot of parcels that were built pre-automobile with zero parking spaces. I'm very sensitive about if something happens to those structures and we make this a conservation parking mitigation district, we may lose those buildings because now we are absolutely enforcing a parking standard for those buildings unless there was a special exception given to rebuild what was currently there."
In plain English: if a downtown building burned down or was demolished after a CPMD designation, the owner would not be allowed to rebuild without modern parking that the lot cannot provide.
That paradox shaped the map. The Commission voted on the map two months later. The vote was four to three. Downtown is now unprotected.
The problem with the paradox is not that it is a paradox. The problem is that it is not true.
Thirty-five days before April 7, the Commission had adopted a regulation that explicitly protected those pre-automobile buildings — including the ability to rebuild them without modern parking. The regulation was drafted by Director Harrigan's office. It is in the live Zoning Regulations as of this writing. Director Harrigan did not mention it.
Section 25.13.3 of Fairfield's Zoning Regulations — Parking Flexibility in the Center Design District — was adopted on March 3, 2026 by a 5-2 vote. Its opening sentence describes the exact buildings Director Harrigan was concerned about:
"The Center Design District is Fairfield's historical commercial center with many buildings constructed before the advent of the automobile where added parking spaces are challenging to provide without sacrificing the vibrant, pedestrian oriented nature of the center."
What the regulation then provides:
"1. Existing buildings, as of the adoption of these regulations, may convert to new uses, without the provision of additional parking provided the footprint of the structure is not expanded.
2. All parking alternatives authorized in Section 25.13 (Joint Usage, Parking Needs Assessment, and Fee-In-Lieu) shall be allowed in the Center Design District, subject to the satisfaction of the requirements set forth in the subsection;
3. Public parking facilities within 1,000 feet of the property that is the subject of the application may be credited toward parking requirements where the applicant demonstrates (i) a legal right to use such parking where required, and (ii) Compatible Peak Parking Demand."
Section 2.10(C) goes further: an existing building without sufficient parking can be replaced as long as the new structure is no larger than the original and the existing parking is not reduced. At the state level, Connecticut General Statutes § 8-2(d)(4) provides that a town cannot terminate a nonconforming use solely because a building is demolished.
The thing Director Harrigan said the Commission would lose if downtown were designated — the ability of pre-automobile buildings to keep operating without modern parking — is exactly what Section 25.13.3 secures. A CPMD designation does not change any of that.
A Conservation and Parking Mitigation District is created under Section 16 of Public Act 25-1, which becomes effective July 1, 2026. After that date, new residential developments of sixteen units or fewer on commercial or mixed-use parcels can be built "as of right" with no parking requirements — unless the parcel sits inside a designated CPMD. Section 25.13.3 governs existing buildings. The CPMD framework governs new construction. They are two different regulatory tools, addressing two different categories of building, under two different statutes.
The April 7 statement collapsed them into one. The Director said designating downtown would force "absolutely enforcing a parking standard" on existing pre-automobile structures. But a CPMD designation does not impose any parking standard on existing buildings. It only allows the Commission to require parking for new development. And Section 25.13.3 — adopted thirty-five days earlier — explicitly preserves the parking flexibility the existing buildings already have.
The defense available after the fact — that the April 7 statement was about reconstruction after total destruction rather than ordinary conversion — does not survive the regulations the statement did not mention. Section 25.13.3 governs conversion of existing buildings without additional parking. Section 2.10(C) governs replacement of existing buildings without sufficient parking. Connecticut General Statutes § 8-2(d)(4) provides that a nonconforming use survives demolition. The three provisions that cover the full scenario the Director described — operating use, conversion, replacement, demolition — all point the same way. None were named.
The paradox dissolved on contact with the regulations the Commission had just adopted.
After the April 7 presentation, Commissioner Peter Capozzi endorsed the staff map on the record — "I honestly think it's fine… I don't think that the downtown area lends itself to a massive kind of residential development" — while Commissioners Braun and Monahan questioned the framing and did not get answers. The hearing closed without a vote. The Commission's next substantive engagement with the CPMD question came two months later.
On June 9, the Commission voted on Section 25.14 — adoption of the Fairfield Center / Reef Road / Southport CPMD. The motion was made by Braun. It was seconded by Capozzi.
It failed four to three.
In favor: Braun, Monahan, Capozzi. Opposed: Chairman Tom Corsillo, Vice Chair Jeff Randolph, Steven Levy, Jonathan Delgado.
The Chair's stated case against the motion built on the same architecture as the April 7 paradox. It also contained a sentence that should have foreclosed the paradox:
Corsillo: "I think most or much of what we love about our downtown was built before parking mandates existed. Many of the buildings that we love most either predate parking requirements, our most recent parking requirements prior to us adopting the regulations in March, or required variances because those parking standards would have prevented them from being built in the first place."
The Chair acknowledged "the regulations in March" on the record. Those are Section 25.13.3 — the regulations he voted to adopt on March 3, one of the five yes votes in the 5-2 adoption. He named them. And in the same paragraph, he continued the framing that treats existing downtown buildings as if those regulations did not protect them.
The framing is the April 7 framing. Old buildings exist in spite of parking standards. Therefore the Commission should not impose parking standards. But the question on the floor was not whether to impose parking standards on existing buildings. The question was whether to retain the Commission's authority to require parking for new buildings of sixteen units or fewer on the same parcels. Section 25.13.3, adopted ninety-eight days earlier, already protected the existing buildings. The Chair knew it had been adopted. He said so on the record. He voted against the CPMD anyway.
When Commissioner Monahan attempted to question the framing before the vote, the Chair declined:
Monahan: "So what I think you just said is that you believe that more residents over businesses downtown will help our businesses grow, our commercial base grow more downtown… So you're looking at future residents. We're looking at current residents who are coming into the downtown."
Corsillo: "I think I've made my position pretty clear."
Corsillo, when Monahan pressed: "I've made my position pretty clear without the need for follow-up questions."
The Vice Chair did not need the framing. On March 3 — the same meeting that adopted Section 25.13.3 — Commissioner Braun asked the Chair and Vice Chair on the record why neither had submitted any proposed exemption-zone list. Vice Chair Jeff Randolph answered for himself:
"I'll only speak for myself. I don't believe we should… have any percentage of the town that's exempt from the parking ban."
That was thirty-five days before the April 7 misstatement, and ninety-eight days before the June 9 vote. Every publicly submitted letter on the CPMD question, at every meeting at which the question was heard, asked for a designation. Every commenter who spoke at a hearing asked for one. The Vice Chair's June 9 no vote was not a response to the April 7 misstatement. It was not a response to the testimony. It was decided in March, before either existed.
The Vice Chair's posture toward dissent on the Commission is on the record in matching form. During the March 24 deliberation on the Section 6 design business district amendments, Commissioner Monahan raised a question about an undefined term in the proposed regulation. The Vice Chair's response, on the public record, was that "if Commissioner Monahan would like to spend time educating herself on that topic, there are plenty of resources online, professionally available and resources available from the town to help her understand this." Commissioner Monahan is one of the three commissioners who voted for downtown protection on June 9. Commissioner Braun, who supported Monahan in raising the question that night, is another. Both have characterized the Vice Chair's conduct toward them at subsequent meetings as a hostile working environment.
The Vice Chair's posture toward the proposed CPMD map matched the posture toward the letters. On May 5, when Commissioner Braun and Commissioner Monahan presented an early draft of the CPMD map with hand-drawn circles indicating proposed zones, the Vice Chair told the Commission the map "doesn't really reflect anything that's actionable" and was "not really thought out." On June 9, after Braun and Monahan returned with a refined parcel-by-parcel QGIS map covering the Central Business District, Post Road from the Circle south of Reef Road, and Southport Historic Village — with documented exclusions for I-95, cemeteries, the railroad, civic facilities, and existing multi-unit residential — the Vice Chair told the Commission the revised map "looks like a Texas congressional map." The first version was too imprecise. The second was too precise.
The Planning Director's April 7 statement was not corrected on June 9. The Chair did not clarify it. He named the regulation that disproved it and continued past it. He shut down the only commissioner who tried to question the framing. The Vice Chair had decided in March, dismissed two versions of the map on contradictory grounds, and on the record told one of the commissioners willing to push back to go educate herself. The vote went four to three.
Public Act 25-1 § 16 takes effect July 1, 2026 — twelve days from this writing. From that date forward, any commercial or mixed-use lot in Fairfield Center, Reef Road, or Southport that is not inside a designated CPMD can be developed by summary review as a 2-to-9-unit middle-housing project or as a mixed-use development of any size, with no obligation to provide parking for the residential units. The Commission's discretion ends. The "as of right" pathway begins.
The June 9 vote does more than decide what happens this year. A future Commission can attempt the CPMD designation again, but every parcel that redevelops under the as-of-right pathway in the meantime escapes the CPMD's reach for the lifetime of whatever gets built on it. The pool of parcels any future Commission could still meaningfully protect shrinks with every redevelopment. The June 9 vote set the size of that pool — for this Commission, and for every Commission after it.
The Commission had the tool the statute gave it. It is the only tool the statute gave it. They chose, four to three, not to use it.
A town like Fairfield runs on a trust contract that almost no one writes down. Commissioners are elected officials who hold part-time public office under oath. Most of them do not have planning degrees. They rely on professional staff — paid, full-time, and the office that wrote the regulations — to tell them what those regulations say and how they interact. The contract is: when the staff member speaks at the lectern, the Commission and the public are getting the best and most informed read of the rules her office wrote. The whole architecture of local self-government depends on that load-bearing trust.
When the planner — who drafted the regulation, who presented it, who watched it pass — describes the same regulation thirty-five days later as if it does not exist, the trust contract does not break neatly. It splinters. Every vote becomes provisional. Every staff recommendation becomes something a commissioner has to verify before relying on. And every Fairfielder who wrote a letter, every Fairfielder who showed up, every neighbor who didn't write has learned what the institutional process is willing to do with their participation. That lesson stays in a town for years. It is the thing that turns "I should write a letter" into "what's the point." The hole isn't in downtown. It's in the operating system.
And there is the specific Fairfield piece. The buildings the Planning Director said the CPMD would destroy are the buildings that make Fairfield Center Fairfield Center. The places your family knows the way to without thinking. The places the kids remember. Saying out loud that protecting them would destroy them — and that the protection that already existed did not exist — does not land as a procedural error. It lands as the institution telling its town: we do not see what you see.
The Planning Director who said it does not live in Fairfield.
The planner's office drafted Section 25.13.3. The planner presented it to the Commission. The Commission adopted it 5–2 on March 3, 2026. Thirty-five days later, on April 7, the same planner told the same Commission, in plain language, that the regulation did not exist. She did not mention it. She used its absence as the reason the staff-drawn map should leave downtown out.
It will not do to say she interpreted Section 25.13.3 differently than its critics. The regulation's text is plain. Its subject — buildings constructed before the advent of the automobile where added parking spaces are challenging to provide — is exactly the buildings she described. Its provisions — conversion without additional parking, replacement under Section 2.10(C), nonconforming use under CGS § 8-2(d)(4) — are exactly the protections she said did not exist.
Either she did not know about a regulation her office had drafted and she had presented thirty-five days earlier — which would raise a different question about who is running Fairfield's planning department, and whether the Director read the regulations she proposed — or she knew and chose not to say so.
The question is not which one it is.
The Commission detrimentally relied on her characterization. They voted four to three against the only tool the statute gave them. Every publicly submitted letter on the CPMD that day, and at the meetings before it and the meeting after, asked the Commission to designate. Residents identified downtown most often; letters also asked for Reef Road, Southport, Stratfield, Tunxis Hill, Central Fairfield, Black Rock, Penfield, Fairfield Beach, and Post Road East. The Commission designated nothing. Not one letter asked for that.
Downtown will be developed. Public Act 25-1 made sure of that, with the affirmative votes of state representatives who answer to Fairfielders. What the Commission could still control — the requirement that new construction on those same parcels include parking for the people who will live in them — they gave away on the strength of a statement that was untrue.
On June 17, I emailed Director Harrigan with the regulation text, the April 7 quote, and three questions. The Director replied within three hours. In writing, she said:
"Any adopted CPMD area applies to new buildings and new construction that includes up to 16 units and could not likely be applied retroactively to existing buildings."
That is the answer the April 7 statement required. On April 7, the Director told the Commission that designating downtown as a CPMD would force "absolutely enforcing a parking standard" on the existing pre-automobile buildings. On June 17, she said in writing that a CPMD could not be applied retroactively to existing buildings. The same Director described the same regulatory framework producing two opposing outcomes sixty-one days apart. The earlier description was the basis the staff map excluded downtown. The later description, in plain language, undoes it.
I followed up on June 18, asking the Director to confirm explicitly that — if the CPMD cannot be applied retroactively to existing buildings — the April 7 concern about losing those buildings was not a risk a CPMD could actually create. As of this writing, she has not responded. The April 7 statement remains uncorrected on the public record. The June 9 vote remains the live procedural outcome.
The Commission can revisit the question. Public Act 25-1 § 16 does not foreclose a future CPMD designation. The regulation Director Harrigan did not mention is still on the books. The misstatement is still on the public record. Neither has been corrected.
In her April 7 statement, Director Harrigan said: "unless there was a special exception given to rebuild what was currently there." The special exception she was concerned about already existed. It had been adopted on March 3. It is Section 25.13.3 of Fairfield's Zoning Regulations.
What happens next is not the Director's question to answer. It is the Commission's. And it is the town's.
Emily Hau is a Fairfield resident and is the Associate Director of the Yale Institute for Foundations of Data Science at Yale University. She has testified at multiple Town Plan and Zoning Commission hearings during 2026. She is paying very close attention.
Read the series:
Part 1: How Fairfield's TPZ chairman spends his day job advising New York housing-finance lenders — and why his public posts about that work matter for the residents whose zoning he votes on. patch.com/connecticut/fairfield/fairfields-tpz-chair-voted-against-parking-protection-nodx
Part 2: How Fairfield's TPZ chairman voted three times against engaging outside legal counsel on Connecticut's new housing law — and why his New York day job involves advising on exactly that kind of legislation. patch.com/connecticut/fairfield/why-fairfields-tpz-voted-5-2-three-times-keep-public-hearing-cts-new-housing-nodx
Part 3: The developer-initiated zoning regulation amendments now in front of the Commission, and the specific 0.92-acre Mill Hill Road parcel one of them appears to have been drafted for. patch.com/connecticut/fairfield/can-developer-buy-zone-wreak-havoc-seems-it-nodx
Part 4: How Fairfield's TPZ chairman used a bylaws subcommittee to constrain a sitting commissioner — and why the video of her resignation isn't on the Town's official YouTube. patch.com/connecticut/fairfield/six-minutes-secretary-resigned-video-gone-nodx
You're reading Part 5: How Fairfield's planning director misstated a regulation her own office had just drafted — and why her misstatement defined a 4-3 vote that left downtown unprotected. https://patch.com/connecticut/fairfield/she-said-protecting-downtown-would-destroy-it-regulation-said-otherwise-nodx
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