Select board adopts interim zoning, effective immediately

May 1, 2021 | Emmett Gartner

New interim zoning measures would impact future development and uses in a section of downtown Waterbury at properties such as the commercial building at 40 Foundry St. owned by Mark Frier. Photo by Lisa Scagliotti

By unanimous vote, the Waterbury Select Board approved a set of interim zoning bylaws to apply to a core section of the downtown village business district. 

Drafted by the Waterbury Planning Commission, the new regulations became effective immediately and are valid for two years, with the possibility of a one-year extension.

The select board held a public hearing on the proposal on Monday night, April 26. Following public comment, the board made three alterations to the draft’s original language before taking its vote to adopt the new rules.

The board heard from town residents and then discussed the public critique, aiming to apply the feedback to the drafted bylaws. Most notably, the public took issue with a provision of the bylaws that would limit building footprints in the Downtown Zoning District to 5,000 square feet.  Previously, town development regulations did not have a limit on building footprints in the downtown. The provision, according to planning commission Chair Ken Belliveau, was proposed by commissioners who feared the construction of larger buildings would dwarf existing residences in the affected area.

George McCain, project manager at the civil engineering firm McCain Consulting, Inc. in Waterbury, called the proposed limit arbitrary and claimed that it could restrain development on sites that could easily support buildings of larger sizes.

Select board Chair Mark Frier recused himself from his chair role during the discussion  due to his business interests in Waterbury. Frier is an owner of The Reservoir pub and owns commercial property in the district covered by the interim zoning regulations. Speaking in his role as a developer, Frier similarly criticized the proposed building-size restriction. 

“One of the goals here is to push density in the downtown and limit sprawl,” Frier said. “I think that the limitation will keep us a town that can’t handle the housing demand and will continue to hold us back from getting developers in here to do more residential projects.”

Frier also noted that his commercial project at 40 Foundry Street recently signed a lease for a brewery in what is considered an industrial building. Should it want to expand in that location, it would not be able to due to the proposed zoning limitations. He supported a limit of 10,000 square feet instead.

Alyssa Johnson, Waterbury’s former economic development director, raised additional concerns about housing opportunities with the 5,000 foot limit. She recognized the tough balance between single-family homes and large developments, but said she would hate to see larger housing projects scrapped because the size threshold was too small. A Waterbury resident, Johnson last week was appointed to the planning commision.

Select board members took these critiques into consideration after they closed the public hearing and discussed possible changes to the draft before they voted.

They first discussed removing Foundry Street from the Downtown Zoning District, thereby eliminating restrictions on the large industrial building owned by Frier. That was eventually scrapped for a more blanketed approach to raise the footprint limit to 10,000 square feet for the entire district as discussed during the hearing.

Additionally, board members altered language in the draft that defined restaurants as establishments with at least 40 percent of the business’s area designated for dining. Their revision deemed businesses to be restaurants so long as they allow for dining on site. 

The final change to the draft fixed a minor typo and the board adopted the measure 4-0 with Frier abstaining. The board thanked Belliveau for the commission’s work on the interim bylaws as it now awaits a more permanent, update of the town’s entire zoning ordinance that has been in the works for the past three years.

That work will continue without Belliveau whose term on the planning commission ends Friday night, April 30. “The planning commission will hopefully be up to the task presented to them in wrestling the permanent bylaws going forward,” he said. 

The adopted version of the interim zoning bylaws for the downtown zoning district and the accompanying map are posted online on the town website in the Zoning & Planning Department’s permit information section.