Waterford — In a two-hour meeting Monday night attended by more than 50 neighbors of the former Cohanzie School property, the Planning and Zoning Commission again delayed a vote on a proposed new zoning district at the school site until the town's planning staff further limits options for a potential buyer.

Before the commission takes a final vote on the zoning change next week, planning staff will draft changes to the proposed new zoning district that would further limit the number of housing units allowed on the property if a developer wants to build a multifamily development, and require any developer to conduct a more extensive traffic study than was included in a previous draft.

The commission's members will consider the amended zoning regulations at their next meeting Nov. 21.

The drafted zoning district, commissioned by First Selectman Daniel Steward, would expand the possible uses for the property to include multifamily housing, professional offices and assisted-living facilities, among other uses.

The proposed regulations are the town's effort to make the property more attractive to developers after it closed the school in 2008, demolished additions built onto the original 1923 structure and used grant funding to remove contamination on the property.

A Middletown firm's offer to buy the property and develop a 154-unit housing complex there fell through over the summer.

Residents of the neighborhood around the school oppose the proposed zoning change, because it would allow another developer who has made an offer on the property to move forward with a plan to build a multifamily housing development there.

Neighbors of the property, many of whom have lived near the school building for decades, said at public hearings they were worried a housing development could bring additional traffic, affect the character of the neighborhood and change "the kind of people" living there.

"We just feel that it wouldn't fit there," Richard Santora, 68, a longtime Kenyon Road resident who attended the meeting Monday.

More than 50 people attended the commission's meeting in Waterford's Town Hall Monday night, silently holding signs that read "NO Zone Change" in red and black letters.

The commission had already held two public hearings on the the proposed zoning district, and were not scheduled to hear more comments from the public who attended Monday's meeting.

But its members repeatedly referenced comments residents made against the proposal at the public hearings, and the audience made their feelings known by hissing or coughing loudly when the prospect of a multifamily development came up.

The board's five members all said they would feel more comfortable in favor of the zoning change if the number of units allowed in a potential housing development in the zoning district were reduced.

The commission had already amended the proposed zoning district to allow only 65 housing units, down from 80 units proposed in an earlier draft.

"It would be too dense, the way it's written now," board chairman Joseph Auwood said. "I assume we'd all like to cut it back substantially."

But, he added later, a zone change would increase the chance for more housing available to a wider variety of people and also allow the town to sell the land and start to recoup the money it has spent demolishing parts of the building and remediating contamination on the site.

"I think this type of housing is needed in Waterford," he said. "I know it's not in my backyard, but somebody needs to break the ice. "I'm just looking for a way that we can do something with this piece of property."

While many residents have said they would prefer to see single-family homes built on the property, no developers have approached the town with offers to build them  there, probably because such a development would be financially risky, according to Planning Director Abby Piersall.

The commission members on Monday voted to decrease the number of housing units allowed in the zoning district again, from 65 to 36 units, and to decrease the number of units allowed per building from 10 to 8.

They also voted to ask the planning staff to add requirements limiting the kind of landscaping a developer could install, and requiring a developer to conduct a study of potential traffic impact on more streets in the neighborhood than had been initially required.

m.shanahan@theday.com