Nora Grace-Flood photo
Townshend mansion: To host special events, to be surrounded by new houses?
Estate co-owner Chuck Mascola.
The owners of the 26-acre former Townshend family home and its surrounding properties are hoping to write a new chapter of accessible preservation into East Shore history by building roughly 50 homes behind the property’s 18th-century mansion — and by drafting a fresh set of zoning regulations to govern that development.
Chuck and Marcella Mascola, two of the three individuals who purchased that historic estate at 701, 709, 725, and 745 Townsend Ave. a year and a half ago, shared their plan to convert some of the Townsend Avenue property’s open space into housing as they pitched a broader idea to introduce “special heritage mixed use zoning districts” into the city’s zoning code.
The properties’ owners received a favorable recommendation from the City Plan Commission on Feb. 1 to establish that zoning district. Alternatively named “RS‑3” zones, the district would allow for more flexible and tasteful development of historic properties like the 26-acre Townsend Estates, according to the Mascolas and their attorney, Marjorie Shansky. That proposed new zoning district now heads to the full Board of Alders for further review and a potential final vote.
The local land-use commissioners, who will have to review the project’s site plan if the Board of Alders approves the zoning amendments, also raised a series of questions last Wednesday about the implications of creating that new district — even as they unanimously supported the undertaking.
“This text will unleash the potential of a large parcel of land,” Shansky said of the proposed establishment of a new zoning district. “It’s such a magnificent and unique property, it’s really a blessing that a person from New Haven has captured it and is seeking to restore, preserve and develop in a way that’s a credit to the neighborhood…. It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity.”
In a followup interview, Chuck Mascola said he and the property’s fellow owners are now trying to “recoup at least a portion of that investment” by converting the mansion itself into an event space and using roughly half the property to create up to 50 homes.
The site is currently zoned as “RS‑2,” which refers to areas meant to accommodate single family dwellings.
Among other provisions, the new RS‑3 zone would allow for more mixed use development, including commercial uses at the property by special exception and the establishment of multi-family housing along with more generous requirements such as property setbacks to allow for flexible design and orientation of incoming homes.
In their application, the three owners, identifying themselves as “The East Shore Partners,” described the rezoning as a “means of supporting historic preservation opportunities for structures and uses on appropriate parcels of land where existing residential districting is unduly restrictive and lacks flexibility to achieve planning objectives in the City.”
Marcella Mascola said she would like to see the mansion used to host special events. The proposed zoning regulations would allow services like “a tasting room, a gift shop, restaurant” among other things to take place on the property so long as the Board of Zoning Appeals permits. The mansion could also be used for small weddings, corporate meetings and neighborhood events, Marcella Mascola added. “We’d find ways to invite the community in,” she said.
Chuck Mascola also said that, despite the text amendment’s expanded density provisions, he would still aim to develop only half of the homes currently possible under land use restrictions on the property. He’d also stick to single family rather than multi-family developments.
The goal would be to maintain about 12 to 13 acres of land as undisturbed, open space.
“No apartments,” he said, adding that the intention is to build single-family homes aimed at sheltering empty nesters who might otherwise be priced out of the East Shore neighborhood as well as individuals or couples new to New Haven and looking to live just outside the city center.
Ultimately, the Mascolas hope to sell the homes to buyers while acting as property managers of the complex. That kind of development, Chuck Mascola, who works in marketing, posited, “doesn’t exist in any city in the United States. You’re literally just five minutes from downtown, you’ll live in this kind of rural feel and get to wander around at night with your dogs under the stars.”
Is This Spot Zoning?
The Townshend estate's unique character as seen through its acres of open space...
...and historic barns and other extant structures on site.
While Shansky pitched the rezoning as a means of supporting development at a unique property, planners for the city defended the zoning amendment to skeptical commissioners as a way to rethink housing development across the city.
During the most recent City Plan Commission meeting on the topic, commissioners questioned whether rezoning was the right tactic for supporting new development at these Townsend Avenue properties.
Commissioner Carl Goldfield, for example, asked whether rezoning the property could be akin to “spot zoning.”
“I thought it was fundamental that you didn’t do zoning changes just for one plot,” he said. Why not establish a planned development district rather than “start changing zoning just to accommodate one situation?”
“This is the antithesis of spot zoning,” Shansky countered. “What we have here are 26.5 acres, which is capacious — that’s a lot of terrain and it’s diverse terrain.”
She said that establishing planned development districts and establishing new zoning districts are similar processes requiring amendments to the city’s zoning code and that neither should be expected to set precedent for zoning habits down the line.
City Plan Executive Director Laura Brown, however, said that the rezoning was supported by city staff because “we saw there was some potential benefit in creating this type of zone” for the broader city “in the benefits overall of increasing housing density.”
City zoning director Nate Hougrand agreed, asserting that the RS‑3 zone could represent a step forward in encouraging mixed use development and stronger housing density. “RS‑3 is more of, like, an intermediary between the RS‑2 and RS‑1, which we saw as having a larger impact not only on the Townshend estate but the city as a whole.” He said that the city had already considered eliminating single-family dwelling districts in the past while allowing for accessory dwelling units and attempting to broaden density around the city.
“I’m not 100 percent clear about how this text amendment allows for a somewhat different pattern of development,” Commissioner and Westville Alder Adam Marchand concluded. He said “RS‑3 does sound pretty context specific, actually” and that both the developers and alders who will ultimately vote on the zoning amendment should consider where else the new zoning may be utilized. That question, he said, could also help the alders to better weigh the pros and cons of which uses should be included or extracted from the text change.
What About The Open Land?
Neighboring homes seen from the Townshend estate.
During the meeting, the Mascolas said they had reached out to and received support from hundreds of residents of the area, arguing that their proposed development is part of a plan to open up and grow the neighborhood.
Multiple people, such as East Shore native Bob Trotta, came forward during the meeting’s public hearing section to testify in favor of the Mascolas’ plans.
“I’ve lived here for 63 years around the corner from the Townsend mansion,” he said. During that time, he said he has mourned the loss of several historic estates, such as the nearby Marlin estate.
“Once I heard he was going to buy this piece of property,” Trotta said of Chuck Mascola, “I knew immediately this would be the best thing to happen.” He said another developer could have bulldozed the estate down and built up to 100 homes on the property, but that he had faith Mascola would maintain the history of the space with taste.
Environmental advocate Gabriela Campos likewise applauded the Mascolas for welcoming the public onto the estates, which allowed her to ask questions about protection of inland wetlands on the property. “The wetlands were already marked out,” she said of her visit, asserting that she approved of the plan to increase housing while urging the public to remain vigilant at the point of site plan review about protections taken by developers to protect the natural ecosystem around the mansion.
Others, on the other hand, expressed concern about having been left out of the loop on the potential development.
Fitz Roy, who lives next door at 757 Townsend Ave., said that he had not heard about the project and worried the rezoning process was a “foregone conclusion” that might see overdevelopment further extant flooding issues at his own property.
New Havener Margaret Wheeler also spoke up: “What they’re gonna do is destroy beautiful open land” with “new housing and impervious surfaces.
“It’ll be 25 acres of open space all cut up and divided… Can they come in here and, say, put a store here, a coffee shop here?” she questioned.
Chuck Mascola spoke out against those claims, noting that while site plan review will happen down the line, “it’s hard to hear misrepresentations of the project.”
“We’re not developers. We’ve never developed anything in our life. We stepped in to make sure it wouldn’t be lost or developed in a much more egregious way,” he said.
He said that after surveying the opinions of almost 300 neighbors, he heard the message that residents were hoping for moderate housing developments to avoid overly crowded complexes while hoping for the opening of land to the public for event use. He said he wants to pursue both of those uses — housing that maintains open space and the public use of the mansion — as ways to keep the estate economically viable while preserving extant barns and outbuildings on the property and “honoring the legacy of the Townshend family themselves.
“I was born on the block across the street,” Chuck Mascola said. “This is the last of the mansions on the East Shore of New Haven… Generating income is the only way to make sure it can survive into perpetuity.”