Six-Story Residential Development Submitted to Greenwich P&Z under CT’s 8-30g Affordable Housing Statute

A new 8-30g affordable housing pre-application has been submitted to Greenwich planning & Zoning for a multi-story residential building at 7 and 9 Western Junior Highway.

Connecticut General Statues Section 8-30g is the state’s affordable housing statute and is designed to incentivize construction of affordable housing by allowing developers to bypass local zoning regulations, with some exceptions including health and safety that clearly outweigh the urgent need for affordable housing.

The 8-30g statute applies until a town or city has 10% of its housing stock designated as affordable. Then it can apply for temporary moratorium if they actively document and build a sufficient number of qualifying affordable housing points. The burden of proof is on the town.

In this new pre-application, Putnam Green Holding LLC is the applicant. The property at 7 Western Jr Highway is 1.63 acres and 9 Western Jr Highway is 1.07 acres.

The applicant, who is represented by John Tesei, wants to remove the four existing multi-family buildings, formally merge the lots and build a six story multi family residential building over a two-level parking garage pursuant to 8-30g

The combined property would total 2.7 acres in the R-PHD-SU zone (Residential – Planned Housing Design – Small Unit and currently features four 3-story multi-family residential buildings with a total of 52,026 sq ft of floor area.

Today the three-story buildings are 42-1/2 ft high.

The new six story buildings would be 80 feet high, while existing regs allow for four stories and a height of 40 ft.

Today, the four buildings contain 66 residential units with a total of 66 bedrooms.

The 8-30g proposal is for 176 units and a total of 216 bedrooms.

Today there are 79 parking spaces, and +/- 200 parking spaces are proposed.

In a letter to P&Z with the application Mr. Tesei wrote that there would be a total of 165 studio, one, two and three-bedroom units and the parking spaces would break down to about 160 garage spaces and 40 surface spaces.

“Thirty percent (30%) of the units above the number allowed as-of-right will be restricted to comply with the Section 8-30g affordability provisions as a ‘set-aside development,'” he wrote.

In June 2025, the 66 unit apartment complex sold for $20.7 million.

Putnam Green was built in 1976 as a rental complex. The mix of units includes 28 studios and 38 one-bedroom apartments, 34 of which are two-story, duplex-style units.

Today, “Greenwich Place” now branded as ARIUM at Greenwich Place and advertising one to three bedroom rental units starting at $3,530 is located on the Putnam Green property.

The complex was originally built as Putnam Green. It briefly went through a failed condo-conversion project by Antares Investment Partners that the New York Times described as “a flop,” around 2007. Antares ceased to operate following the 2008 financial crisis.

At the time of the June 2025 sale, ConnectCre, wrote, “The $20.7-million sale represents the largest multifamily transaction in Greenwich since the 2012 sale of Milbank Commons.” Part of the sale included the buy-out of a ground lease. A neighboring property had owned Putnam Green land through a lease agreement set to expire in September 2025.

The application has yet to be added to a P&Z meeting agenda. The applicant requests that it be added at the earliest opportunity.

The town’s P&Z commission in recent years has approved two tall multi story buildings submitted under 8-30g. One is already under construction on Benedict Court.

The second, which is for a pair of multi story buildings straddling Mason Street at the former Honda dealership. That application, today known as Chilston Court, was approved by the P&Z commission with conditions in 2024 that were appealed to superior court by the applicant.

The conditions mostly related to comparability of the affordable vs market rate units and the inclusion of retail on the ground floor, though 8-30g does not talk about mixed use, only residential.

Last week a judge in Hartford ruled in favor of the town P&Z on their conditions of approval.