New London — An attorney representing the owners of the Edgerton School property is pushing forward with plans to clear any land-use hurdles standing in the way of a proposed affordable-housing development.

Attorney Mathew Greene has applied to the Planning and Zoning Commission to rezone three parcels of property adjacent to the former school at 120 Cedar Grove Ave. from residential to limited commercial — in line with the C-2 zone that now encompasses the school.

The application comes in the same month that the commission rejected Greene's proposal to amend zoning regulations to allow for residential developments in the C-2 zone. Greene said he is preparing an appeal of that decision to New London Superior Court but declined to discuss details.

The conceptual plans of a 124-unit complex at the former school — a replacement complex for the Thames River Apartments — shows the development extending into the three properties that are the focus of Greene’s newest application.

Single-family residential homes are situated on all three of the properties but mostly are surrounded by the C-2 zone. The properties are located at 130, 134 and 136 Cedar Grove Ave.

The owners of the former Edgerton School site — Peabody Properties and Affordable Housing and Services Collaborative Inc. — have purchase agreements with owners of two of the properties, along with another off of Colman Street, and purchased 124 Cedar Grove Ave. last month for $150,000. They bought the Edgerton School site for $600,000 in April.

The purchase of the home, according to previous comments from Affordable Housing President Michael Mattos, is part of the continuing commitment to finding replacement homes for the residents at Thames River Apartments. The two companies were enlisted by the New London Housing Authority to find a suitable site to build as the result of a class-action lawsuit from the Crystal Avenue residents.

Area residents, as they have with multiple proposals at the site of the school, have fought the plans.

Greene said that as with the prior zoning amendment application, the commission is not supposed to consider the housing proposal specifically but rather the merits of the application on its own. He said the two applications are “mutually exclusive” but both in line with the city’s plan of conservation and development.

“I’m looking to take three properties completely surrounded by a C-2 zone and straighten out the line — the line being Cedar Grove Avenue,” Greene said. “It makes sense. What doesn’t make sense is to have those remain residential properties.”

Greene said the three homes awkwardly were left surrounded by the C-2 zone during a past zone change.

The school site and immediate area previously were zoned single-family residential with the school labled as an institutional use. Records show that the Planning and Zoning Commission, after the closing of the school in 2006, on its own changed the zoning on the school property from residential to limited commercial.

The zone change made by the commission in 2009 came at a time when former owner Peter Levine had proposed a 32-unit affordable-housing development at the site — plans that never came to fruition.

When the city did sell the property to Levine, it placed a series of land-use restrictions in the deed with the aim of generating tax revenue from whatever eventually would be built there. Those restrictions have since been conditionally lifted by the City Council. Some councilors voiced an opinion that a decision on the type of development allowed on the property was best left in the hands of the appropriate land-use commission.

g.smith@theday.com

Editors note: This version of the story clarifies the City Council vote on lifting deed restrictions.