OPPOSE EAST AVENUE REZONING

THE VOICES OF EAST NORWALK RESIDENTS CONTINUE TO BE IGNORED BY THE CITY OF NORWALK
Our concerns with the proposed re-zoning of the East Avenue Corridor (East Norwalk Village Transit Zone - EVTZ) have been vocal & unwavering ... please read the background below (and also the requests of the East Norwalk Neighborhood Association ENNA that would help the City course-correct before it’s too late- posted on our website https://eastnorwalk.org/east-norwalk-transit-oriented-development/
If you agree with your neighbors that the City MUST pause now, then join us in OPPOSING THE EVTZ by signing this petition (skip directly to petition box at the bottom and signature only if you're already very familiar with the proposed plan)…
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BACKGROUND: A well-intentioned City-commissioned and taxpayer funded study to consider improvements to the East Norwalk Train Station area, including beautification, new businesses & jobs, and some affordable housing has resulted in an out-of-scale development plan. This “East Norwalk Transit Oriented Develop- TOD” plan could result in over 1,200 new apartments in oversized, mixed-use buildings in an area much further out than just around the train station.
The ENNA sat on the TOD committee and East Norwalk residents enthusiastically participated in the input sessions where we proposed “some freshening up” and shared OUR East Norwalk village vision. We’ve always seen East Norwalk as a “diamond in the rough” – but the City has a far different vision than what the residents requested. Our vision is walkable, peaceable, and desirable with some modest new development that serves the local residents, not a regional draw of consumers and tourists. Theirs is a free-for-all for deep pocketed developers to jam density of population, apartments and large scale retail.
In the City’s desire to maximize population growth, City officials and their consultants drafted this plan which will now create an East Norwalk Village Transit Zone (EVTZ) that incentivizes large scale developers to buy & assemble multiple parcels in the entire area from I-95 to the Mill Pond and into some side streets including Fitch, Fort Point, Prowitt, Rowan and Van Zant.
Just imagine 3-1/2 story buildings on BOTH sides of East Avenue that house apartments, retailers, offices and restaurants and the traffic along that area, and you’ll start to see just how oversized this can be, how entirely it changes us from the hoped-for village concept to an area that is packed with apartments and traffic congestion, along with air, noise and light pollution. No amount of decorative streets lights and pretty planters can change what large scale development there would look and feel like.

The plan includes an easily achieved “bonus point” system for developers to get approved to go from the baseline 2.5 stories up to 3.5 stories in exchange for them adding some niceties (what the plan calls Public Amenities). In theory, those amenities are supposed to enhance the public realm and provide quality of life benefits for East Norwalk residents that are otherwise unachievable by the city or private property owners. In reality, the proposed list of possible amenities gives us current residents a consolation prize for the excessive negatives that come with large buildings and more people: traffic, noise, pollution, and strain on City services. Adding that much height can add 30-50% more apartments, more people, and more cars. And just what are these “amenities” we are offered for this huge and permanent impact? Almost all of them are actually marketing features for the developers to attract tenants or that benefit only the developers and their tenants. Nothing that benefits the current residents, except one - an unlikely candidate to be included in the developer’s pick, at that- a Community Garden with no promise of size, location, parking, or accessibility. Yes, you read that correctly: it’s the developer who gets to pick what THEY want to give us in exchange for adding to our already congested roads and to our already over-burdened education, police, fire, and public works among other City services. On this “menu” of niceties are solar panels and pervious pavement, both of which should be the price of entry given the environment and serious flooding in East Norwalk; or public art and water features that beautify the development in order to attract housing and retail tenants; or free wi-fi, a water-bottle filling station, and bike rack. Well, you get the point.
The bottom line is this: the re-zoning to an EVTZ district is purely an easy-get to encourage developers to buy up and assemble parcels to build 3.5 story buildings.
If this EVTZ zone creation isn’t paused now, and gets approved as is by the Zoning Commission and Common Council, then come development time you and your neighbors will have little or no input on what those give-away bonus point amenities are. And even though these applications must be submitted under Zoning Special Permit regulations that require Public Hearings, the fact is the vast majority of Special Permits for mixed-use development in Norwalk are approved, regardless of public input or outcry. It’s a process of “show us your pretty architectural renditions, throw in a few more shrubs and trees, add a few meaningless “public” amenities from our menu, and we’ll have no choice but to approve you!” Because the only thing this City hates more than having to listen to taxpayers is dealing with lengthy, costly lawsuits from well-funded developers…
This Administration has already shown it’s hand that they do not listen to residents’ input. Engaged residents consistently and repeatedly bring up their opposition to this oversized zoning plan, and reiterate what we want to see instead, and yet the City ignores our letters, emails and voices at public hearings.
This EVTZ zone change will irrevocably change East Norwalk into a City area of large buildings and dense population. And City officials will even tell you that is the exact intent of the East Norwalk Transit Oriented Development Plan. But it’s not at all the quaint New England seaside village we residents asked for…..it’s everything you begged them not to do.

THE EAST NORWALK NEIGHBORHOOD ASSOCIATION INVITES ALL NORWALKERS WHO ARE CONCERNED WITH THE CONTINUED PUSH TOWARD OVERDEVELOPMENT, AND EAST NORWALKERS IN PARTICULAR WHO ARE CONCERNED WITH WHAT WILL RESULT IN LARGE-SCALE DEVELOPMENT AND FURTHER COMMERCIALIZATION OF THE GATEWAY TO OUR NEIGHBORHOODS, TO OPPOSE THIS PLAN AND DEMAND THAT THIS ADMINISTRATION PAUSE AND ACTUALLY TAKE INTO ACCOUNT THE RESIDENTS’ FEEDBACK - SIMPLY SIGN THIS PETITION TODAY.

To read ENNA’s list of specific concerns and recommendations on this please visit https://eastnorwalk.org/east-norwalk-transit-oriented-development/.
To read the Norwalk P&Z’s EVTZ zone change application and design guideline documents please visit https://www.norwalkct.org/2670/East-Norwalk-Village-TOD-Zone )