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Stratford partnership hires consultant to draft plan development district rules, will explore affordability
Summary
At a meeting called to order at 12:03, the Stratford Housing Partnership agreed to begin a review of plan development district (PDD) regulations and enlisted an on‑call consulting firm (named in the transcript as variants of "Gman/GMO/Gorman and York") to draft recommended text and technical fixes to the town's multifamily rules; consultants said the work could take roughly three to six months and may include public workshops and affordability options.
The Stratford Housing Partnership met to elect leadership and begin work on a new plan development district, a flexible zoning tool consultants said could help the town guide moderate‑density and mixed‑use development.
"We hired Gman and New York team as our on‑call consulting planners" to prepare draft regulations and to remedy problems in the town's multifamily section, Planning and Zoning Administrator Susma Atara said, describing the meeting as a recommendation‑gathering session rather than a formal vote. "The ultimate intent is for this group to come to a consensus on what you think is ideal for this town," she said.
Consultant Don (identified in the transcript as both "Don Poland" and later as "Don Paul") of the consulting team told members PDDs — also described as master plan overlay zones — provide flexibility to set design standards, open space, and density that align with community goals while encouraging market interest in specific locations. "They're a flexible process ... used in specific areas within communities to try and create greater market interest and also at the same time ensuring that they have the design standards or regulatory standards that ensure the community is ultimately going to get what they want for development in that area," Don said.
Members asked how fast the partnership could expect draft regulations. Don recommended the partnership set its own pace but said, based on typical practice, "it's not uncommon that something like this would take three to six months," depending on workload and how much public engagement is scheduled. He suggested the partnership hold a public workshop to gather resident input before finalizing recommendations to send to the zoning and planning commissions.
Participants also asked whether PDDs can incorporate affordability and mixed‑income requirements. Don said PDDs can be designed with explicit affordability standards or can reference existing inclusionary or multifamily provisions. "Sometimes a PDD may be a key aim may actually be to achieve affordability and may have the affordability requirements written straight into it," he said, noting other towns combine PDDs with inclusionary zoning or use low‑income housing tax credit financing to support affordable units.
Staff described the next step as a consultant‑prepared introductory presentation explaining PDDs, how they might affect parts of Stratford, and examples from other towns. The partnership agreed to schedule that presentation for a future meeting and to keep all substantive communication within public meetings, as required by open‑meeting rules.
The meeting closed after the group set the next task: consultants will prepare an overview and early concepts for the partnership to discuss at the next session.
