Lyme ― Building on the town’s penchant for open space, officials given the job of promoting affordable housing have proposed a cluster of homes tucked into the woods where nobody can see them.

A draft plan from the Affordable Housing Commission for a floating affordable housing zone proposes two-bedroom units ranging from 900 to 1,500 square feet. Consisting of freestanding homes, duplexes, or townhouses, the developments would have to be at least 5 acres to qualify.

Phyllis Ross, a member of both the Affordable Housing Commission and the Planning and Zoning Commission, said the homes would be at least 50 feet from the road during a Planning and Zoning Commission meeting last week.

“They will be attractive units, but we don’t necessarily want people to see them from the street,” she said in a recording of the meeting.

Ross said the Affordable Housing Commission is looking at funding sources so the town can purchase roughly 30 acres for an as-yet-undetermined number of homes.

The land would be owned by the town but managed by an established affordable housing developer, according to the plan.

“Probably starting off, what we first build will be rental units because there’s a huge need,” Ross said.

A house is considered affordable when those making less than 80% of the area median income spend no more than 30% of their income on housing-related expenses like the rent, utilities and taxes. In Lyme, that means a family of four making $89,840 would qualify.

“These are not poor people, by any means,” Ross said.

Carol House, co-chairwoman of the Affordable Housing Commission and a member of the Planning and Zoning Commission, said that could mean building three homes to start and adding more in the future. She invoked a previous discussion, during which members declined to regulate rooster noise, when she described how affordable housing might fit into Lyme’s bucolic atmosphere.

“We’re not going to line them up on (Route) 156, looking ugly,” she said of the homes. “These are going to be attractive places in the woods, with roosters.”

The proposal specifies the affordable housing developments would be appropriate for the town’s two most rural zones with minimum lot sizes ranging from 2 to 3 acres.

Ross said the commission isn’t yet asking to increase the number of units that can go on an acre, but added it “may have to ask for more than what is allowed now.”

Is it a cluster development?

In a key deviation from current regulations, the plan relies on clustering. That means the homes would not be spread out evenly across a given number of acres, but would be constructed closer together in the most buildable areas of the property to leave the rest as open space.

Ross was hesitant to use the term “clustering” when describing how many units might be placed in a given area, but Planning and Zoning Commission Chairman Bernie Gigliotti urged her to say it.

“It’s a cluster,” he said. “You can put lipstick on a pig and it’s still a pig.”

Ross and House pointed to action at the state legislature this year that ended up with a directive for the Office of Policy and Management to determine how many homes each municipality would have to build to satisfy the need for affordable housing statewide. Preliminary estimates from the Open Communities Alliance puts Lyme’s share at 231 units.

House described the target as unreasonable for Lyme but acknowledged the need for affordable housing.

“Do we need 231 units? Absolutely not. But we certainly could use 30 or something like that, and we’ve got to figure out how to do it,” she said.

The Planning and Zoning Commission, by consensus, authorized the formation of a three-member subcommittee to look into the proposal. The members are Ross, Anne Littlefield and Fritz Gahagan.

Floating zone vs. special permit

The proposal as presented would be implemented through a floating zone framework, while First Selectman David Lahm on Monday said he would prefer to use the special permit process to regulate affordable housing in town.

The floating zone would specify requirements for affordable housing but could be placed in the rural zoning districts that comprise most of the community. Once approved for a specific the location, the affordable housing zone is placed on the zoning map.

The American Planning Association said floating zones are an effective planning tool to open up the possibility of growth in specific areas like affordable housing. The association acknowledged critics who say the floating zone can “undermine the ability of citizens to rely on the predictability of the zoning map and can favor private development over the public interest.”

Lahm put it this way: “You buy property and you expect the zoning to be one way, and the town basically drops a new zone on you.”

The special permit process is an alternative to the traditional site plan application used for routine residential and commercial construction. A special permit involves more oversight by the Planning and Zoning Commission as well as input from the public. The commission can apply, on a case-by-case basis, conditions to make sure the project fits in with the type of development already in place in the zone.

Lahm said the special permit process allows for more targeted oversight of potentially smaller projects compared to the floating zone.

According to the state Office of Legislative Research, courts have held that the state zoning laws implicitly grant municipalities the power to use these techniques even though they are not spelled out in statute.

Case law has also held that unlike a special permit, a zoning commission is not required to approve a floating zone for a specific development even if the applicant meets all of the requirements of the regulations.

e.regan@theday.com