Letter To The Editor: Historic Fairfield Under Siege By Developer

The town of Fairfield is under assault and the culprits are our state legislators in Hartford and real estate developers who use a state law to circumvent local zoning regulations.

The Affordable Housing Act, also known by the code of 8-30g, has taken Fairfield by storm. Almost everywhere you look Fairfield is taking on a new appearance in the form of condominiums and large apartment complexes. The best example is the unsightly apartment building directly next door to St. Thomas Church on the Post Road.

Recently another development, a massive apartment complex, was proposed to Fairfield’s town zoning commission. This monstrosity, if approved, will abut the sacred Historic District of Fairfield, directly on Beach Road. This latest insult to our legacy comes in the form of a four-story affordable housing project, yep, 8-30g, on the site of the old Masonic Lodge at 131 Beach Road. This compound will have 40 apartments and rise 60 feet above the local historic homes on the Old Post Road. It includes parking under the building, so in essence this “eye-sore” will be five stories high.

This apartment complex would be directly across the street from First Congregational Church, founded in 1639, viewable from St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, erected in 1855, prior to the Civil War, and the Sun Tavern will also be in “line of site” to this outlandish structure. George Washington used the Sun Tavern as a meeting place for the Fairfield militia who rowed across Long Island Sound in the dead of night to spy on the British in New York.

Slowly our charming town with a history that dates back to the early 1600s is becoming another Norwalk or Stamford, or even worse, Westport, a town inundated with affordable housing projects. Lest we forget the British used Fairfield as a staging ground and Alexander Hamilton was reported to have been married at the Burr Mansion. Since wining the War of Independence, Connecticut was the first colony to write its own constitution. That document was penned by Roger Sherman at his residence on the Old Post Road, also known as the Sherman Parsonage home. Hence our license plates: Constitution State.

All this history and our beloved Historic District and Old Post Road houses are under siege. The reason is just pure greed.

The origin of the Affordable Housing Act comes from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, also known as HUD. Connecticut, like all 50 states, has accepted financial housing assistance from the federal government. The catch is the states must then abide by the federal rules of building a percentage of affordable housing in every town and municipality.

In 1989, the Affordable Housing Land Use Appeals Procedure was created in Connecticut. This formed a legal domino effect on all Connecticut towns. If your town did not have the required 10 percent of affordable housing, the developers began using the 8-30g statute to build whatever and wherever they pleased. The town’s zoning restrictions or other common sense rules become irrelevant, all superseded by 8-30g. The only way to defeat this law is to prove that the structure poses a public safety or health issue or environmental issue.

When a neighborhood decides to challenge such a project and it gets denied, it ends up in Connecticut Superior Court, where nearly 90 percent of these projects are won on appeal in Hartford with the local towns having to comply with the law and unsightly developments.

Reasonable people would agree that affordable housing is a good thing. It just doesn’t benefit one segment of the population; it also helps the elderly who may want to downsize to stay in Fairfield, young people just starting out, and firemen and policemen.

At what point do we, as Fairfield residents, say, “enough is enough?”

Let’s not let this happen to our beloved town. Stand up and be heard!

Walt Shaw

Old Post Road resident