Draft commercial zoning consolidates downtown zones, tests higher FARs and flags nonconforming buildings

Staff presented a draft commercial zoning memo that would simplify existing downtown classifications into a retail zone and a consolidated business zone and showed a table of proposed bulk standards and map edits. Emily, the staff presenter, summarized an FAR analysis that tested allowable FARs of 0.6, 0.7 and 0.8 to measure how many nonconforming lots would become conforming under each option.

Commissioners focused on Business C, where roughly four office buildings (six if counting the Locust Ave hotel) are nonconforming under existing standards. Staff said those properties are already built at greater bulk or height than the proposed rules would allow and suggested three possible paths: (1) rely on existing Connecticut nonconforming statutes and leave buildings as grandfathered; (2) explicitly allow adaptive reuse to the building’s existing built FAR so a change of ownership would not force demolition; or (3) create a tailored special‑permit provision (similar to the Locust Ave hotel text) that would allow limited additions subject to design controls.

Legal mechanics were discussed: enlargements that further violate zoning can implicate the Zoning Board of Appeals standard for a variance, so staff recommended placing exception language in the zoning text (or in a clearly referenced exemptions section) to clarify whether PNZ can act without forcing applicants to seek variances. Commissioners asked staff to draft concrete regulatory language reflecting the hotel example and to place it either in the nonconformity section or a dimensional‑exceptions section for review at the next meeting.

Next steps: staff will prepare proposed text for adaptive reuse and nonconforming exceptions and circulate it with the revised timeline before the March meeting.