GREENWICH, CT — Plans to build a three-story, 13-unit residential building at 9 Glenville St. have been approved by the Greenwich Planning & Zoning Commission.
The commission voted unanimously last week on the proposal, which calls for demolishing an existing garage and an old Victorian home on the property to construct a 17,730-square-foot, three-story, multi-family residential building with associated underground and surface parking, as well as stormwater management and landscaping improvements.
The new building will have five one-bedroom and eight two-bedroom apartments, with two of those apartments designated as moderate-income dwelling units.
An earlier proposal featured a retail component on the first floor, but that has since been removed.
The plans were approved with several conditions, notably, parking was reduced from 28 regular spaces plus an ADA space to 25 regular spaces plus an ADA space. An accessway will be removed, and the size of the refuse area for the site will be reduced.
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The project is within the Glenville Historic District, which is included in the U.S. Department of the Interior's National Register of Historic Places. The district contains 57 resources of which 51 contribute to its significance, P&Z Chair Margarita Alban said.
The site at 9 Glenville St., which previously operated as a gas station, contains three of those 51 contributing structures - the Andrew Pottgen House and a garage, which are both set to be demolished, and a shed.
When the proposal was first submitted to Planning & Zoning in 2023, John Heagney, attorney for the applicant 9 Glenville Street LLC, with developer Joe Granitto, said the Greenwich Historic District Commission noted the home was in disrepair and needed to be demolished.
A tax card associated with the property shows that the home was sold in 2021 for $1.15 million.
Anne Jones, an alternate commission member who was seated for this application, said the site at 9 Glenville St. is "tricky" and "complicated."
"I do have concerns that the project is a lot for this site, and it's not sort of in harmony with the neighborhood and there's a lot of impact on the whole entire site. But at the same time, I know we want housing diversity there," Jones said.
Alban said, "We had very intense feelings about this application."
Fellow member Peter Lowe spoke about the need for affordable and moderate-income housing.
"We need more housing, and the town doesn't want large apartment buildings with 1,500 units sprouting up anywhere in town," Lowe said. "We probably need to acknowledge that perfect solutions are few and far between, and at the end of the day, the need for housing may supersede almost everything else."
A vote to approve failed to carry at 3-2. The commission amended the motion to add conditions related to parking, the accessway and the refuse area, and the vote was unanimous at 5-0.