Scratch that: Rendering of the originally proposed Whitney-Trumbull development.
A controversial application to build 150 apartments at Trumbull and Whitney has stalled after the City Plan Department rejected the developer’s application and removed it from an upcoming zoning meeting agenda.
A New Jersey-based company called Aptitude Development had planned to purchase and demolish the buildings at 97 – 107 Whitney Ave. and 63 – 65 Trumbull St., in order to build a seven-story, 150-unit apartment complex in their place.
Aptitude CEO Jared Hutter presented those plans to the East Rock Community Management Team in February — and heard back strong pushback from community members, which escalated when Hutter railed against meeting attendees. (Read more about the meeting here.)
Aptitude applied for a variance to allow for an 80-foot-tall building, rather than the permitted 45 feet, as well as a variance to allow for just 29 parking spaces, rather than the required 135.
According to City Plan staffer Nate Hougrand, Aptitude’s application did not meet two requirements of a “Planned Unit Development” (or PDU) — a type of development that allows builders to circumvent zoning rules for a particular lot. A PDU application needs to provide 250 square feet of open space per dwelling unit, which Aptitude’s application did not meet. And, Hougrand said, applicants for PDUs can seek up up to a 33 percent reduction of the lot area-to-dwelling unit area ratio, which Aptitude exceeded.
What now?
“We haven’t heard from the applicant,” City Plan Director Laura Brown told the Independent Tuesday afternoon. “I think there will be some next steps, but I think there was some learning that came out of this process. Let’s hope that there’s more community engagement from the applicant.”
Aptitude did not respond to a request for comment in time for this story. The development company had entered a pending contract to purchase the property. At the Management Team meeting, Hutter stated that the sale depended on a“number of contingencies, one of which would be the zoning approval for the redevelopment of a residential building.”
Tonino Mavuli of Olympia Properties, the lot’s current owner, told the Independent that his company is still considering how to move forward.
“We don’t know what we’re doing yet. We haven’t made any decisions yet,” he said.