Downtown Elderly Housing Grows, Adding Parking Worries

The original 48 units of elderly housing and veteran housing approved at the old Danbury Police headquarters has been proposed anew at 79 units.

The original was approved in May 2011, and the public hearing on the expanded plan was continued to Sept. 12. The larger plan worries some people because roughly two-thirds of the parking is leased off site.

Television show host and Danbury senior advocate Lynn Waller recalls she specifically asked former Congressman James Maloney to expand the project in 2011, but now she's worried.

"I almost think there are too many," said Waller, who was chuckling because she got what she asked for. "I almost hesitate to say anything negative. I don't want it to go away. I'm just questioning it."

The city's zoning requires 207 parking spaces for the 79 apartments, attached medical offices and headquarters for the Connecticut Institute for Communities, Maloney's organization. The Connecticut Institute proposed the housing, health center, retail and office center on Danbury's Main Street.

"Any proposal of size is going to have issues that will draw the attention of commission members and members of the public," Maloney said.

This housing proposal arose, Maloney said, because the regional planning agency, HVCEO, reported Danbury has a shortage of 2,000 to 3,000 units of elderly housing.

Maloney said he has a 20-year lease on parking across Main Street from the project on a large parking lot owned by St. Peter's Church. The project is leasing 161 units at St. Peter's. It also has a lease for late Saturday afternoon and Sunday to use 21 parking spots at Union Savings Bank across Boughton Street from the project. Those plus the 74 units available at the project itself equal a total of 256 spots. The project requires 205. Seven of them are handicapped spots.

Robert Steinberg, a downtown Danbury landlord and a member of the Danbury Parking Authority, criticized this project and the Danbury Head Start building a block over on Bank Street, another Maloney project, because they have similar parking problems.

The Head Start project has 50 parking spaces, but only 11 are at the building. The other 39 are across Foster Street in a lot behind the former Immanuel Lutheran Church.

"I understand the need for the project," Steinberg said, "but in order to not burden the rest of the city, we need a permanent parking solution, not a 20-year solution."

Steinberg said the project will require a parking solution in 20 years or sooner, depending on when the church needs its parking lot. Why not solve the problem today, Steinberg asked, instead of pushing it into the future.

"When all those people are parking on the streets, it becomes a problem for the local businesses, the other people who live downtown, the church and the elderly," Steinberg said.

Deborah Pacific, executive director of the Danbury Parking Authority, said she is just now studying the expanded proposal. She said the authority has known for years the city needs more parking in the area of Bank, Boughton, Foster and Main streets.
 
Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton said this project helps the city provide housing for the elderly, many of its residents will use public transit downtown, and having more development downtown, "is a good problem to have."

"It's a good project," Boughton said.