Damry.

Let the record show we will begin at 705 on February 10th, 2026 with a roll call.

Commissioner Bennett.

Here.

Commissioner Botello.

Here.

Mr.

Fuchs.

Commissioner Hall.

Commissioner James.

Here.

Commissioner Jowdy that is absent.

Commissioner O'Neal.

Here.

Commissioner Trata is absent.

Commissioner Nee Jane.

Here.

Mr.

Novus.

Yeah.

Commissioner O'Laughlin.

Here.

And I'm Chairman Hadad.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.

Numbers work.

Commissioner Nijam, would you please sit in for the entire evening for Commissioner Jowdy?

Love to.

Thank you.

Commissioner O'Laughlin, would you please sit in for Commissioner Trata for the entire evening?

I'd be happy to.

Thank you very much.

The next regular meeting is scheduled for February 24th, 2026.

If we can all stand, if everyone has their flags, feel free to raise them while we do the Pledge of Allegiance.

The Pledge of Allegiance to the flags of America.

Okay.

Indivisible delivery.

Okay.

Thank you.

Uh I'm just going to do a visual.

Ms.

Reed, help me out on this.

Do I have enough people here tonight to accept last week's minutes or last meeting's minutes?

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Okay.

Those that were here can vote on.

Everyone got a copy of the January 27, 2026 minutes.

It's public record was in everybody's packet.

Is there a motion to accept the minutes of January 27, 2026?

Motion made by Commissioner Nee James.

Is there a second?

Second.

Deletions, additions, modifications.

Not hearing any.

All those in favor signify by saying aye.

All right.

All those opposed.

Minutes are accepted unanimously.

There's no public hearings this evening.

There is a continuation of a public hearing.

However, before we do that, let me read into the record the legal notice for this evening.

Pursuant to Chapter 14, sections 1-228 and 1-229 of the Connecticut General Statutes is amended.

The public hearing regarding the following petition was adjourned and continued by order of the zoning commission of the city of Dambry to the 10th day of February 2026 to be held on the Zoom platform at 7 p.m.

Petition of Salem Plaza LLC to amend sections 5A25A5 and 11B3 of the zoning regulations.

Agenda to be posted will include instructions on how to access the Zoom meeting or to view the meeting in real time on YouTube.

Theodore J.

Hadid Jr.

Chairman posted on the city website.

Tom Kirk's office on January 28, 2026.

Published in the news times on February.

Oh on Friday, January 30th, 2026.

Purchase order number 2026-002.

This agenda was filed in the town clerk's office on Thursday, February 5th, 2026 at 534 p.m.

Virtual Zoom meeting introduction is meeting of the Dambury zoning commission is being held on Zoom as a virtual meeting, even though this meeting is a virtual meeting.

Members of the public and interested parties continue to have the opportunity to participate in the meeting in a couple of different ways.

You can participate via Zoom and see the audio and the video, or you can call in by phone and participate via audio only.

Please be aware that we may have to mute your microphone or telephone to avoid an echo or some other background noise.

This is also being streamed live via YouTube.

Instructions on how to participate in the meeting appear on the City of Dambury website.

And all of the documents and materials that apply to the matters to be discussed during this meeting, including the agenda, are also available on a city of Dambury website.

As always, if you have any questions, please contact the City of Danbury planning and zoning department.

As a reminder, the entire meeting will be posted on and can be seen on the City of Dambury website.

We will follow the post at the end as per standard practice.

If prior to the meeting, any questions or comments on the agenda items were submitted via email to Director Al Bakri, those comments will be read during the appropriate portion of the meeting.

Finally, please remember that technology glitches sometimes do occur.

Please be patient if that happens.

Okay, regarding the procedure of the meeting.

We're gonna have uh a couple documents read the 83A planning commission recommendation and the 83B West Cog recommendation and any of the other any other documents uh that are appropriate, including uh the planning department staff report.

Uh once that is completed, we're gonna ask commission members only if they have any questions on the content of the reports that were written.

Um, then we are going to go to those wishing to speak in favor of the petition.

It's generally the petitioner or their attorney, they're gonna make a presentation.

I'm gonna call on commission members to see if there's any questions of the attorney or that representative at that time.

And then I'm gonna ask if there's anybody else in favor of the petition, and then I'm gonna go to those speak wishing to speak in opposition to the petition.

I'm gonna give the petitioner or their attorney time to rebut if they'd like any comments that may have been heard during the uh those that were speaking in opposition.

I'm gonna ask commission members if they have any questions.

I'm gonna go to the director for final closing remarks, and at that time, a couple one of a couple things may happen.

We will either continue the public hearing waiting for more information, or we will close the public hearing.

Um at that time.

Uh, so let me get to where I'm going to go.

And I'm going right now to the 83A referral.

It's a petition of Salem Plaza LLC to amend sections 5A2, 5A5, and 11B3 to zoning regulations.

It's dated January 12, 2026.

It's a Theodore J.

Headhead Junior Chairman, Damory Zoning Commission.

This is from Arnold E.

Fanaldi Jr., Chairman of the Damray Planning Commission.

At the web-based Zoom meeting held on January 7th, 2026, the City of Damory Planning Commission voted to give the above reference petition a negative recommendation for the following reasons.

This would be reversing the previous decision to remove this from the commercial zones.

And this is not consistent with the plan of conservation and development.

POCD.

The motion for negative recommendation was made by Mrs.

Hofstetter, seconded by Mr.

Chiocio, and passed unanimously by voice vote with three eyes from Mr.

Chiocio, Mrs.

Hofstetter, and Chairman Fanalbi.

This is gonna go back over here.

This is gonna go over here.

Regarding the 83B referral, uh, it was requested of them from uh our department, and it says good morning.

Uh from Tucker Beckett to Joanne Reed.

Thank you for submitting the attached referral to West Cog.

The opinion of regional staff is that the proposed amendment is primarily of local interest with minimal intermunicipal impact.

All my best Tucker.

That's dated December 30th, 2025.

Um, um I didn't put that over here.

We approved the minutes, right?

Yes, we did.

That goes from left to right.

Uh Director, would you please um talk about your staff report?

Absolutely.

Good evening, everyone.

Thank you.

I'm gonna share my scheme.

Absolutely.

Please uh allow me access here.

You should have received it.

Did you?

Okay.

We got you.

Okay.

Thank you.

We received an application from uh Mr.

Peter, and the rest of it is that the applicant would like to ask for amendment to the zoning regulation to allow what I call as a limited self-storage in an existing warehouse in the CG20 district.

CG is a general uh uh commercial.

Before I actually talk about the details, I would like to remind you about what the zoning commission did last year.

If you recall, there were many changes or amendments to the zoning regulations, among which there was one amendment to limit self storage only in IL40 and Ig80, which uh our industrial districts, and not allowing it in other parts of the city.

And the reason is if you recall, is we had a workshop, actually, maybe two workshops, and we're talking about the significant inventory of where houses in the city, and it appeared that it's kind of uh I would call it a business of convenience.

A lot of people actually would like to have it anywhere because usually you don't end up hiring a lot of folks, and there's not a lot of maintenance associated with self-storage.

From our standpoint as a city, yes, you can have it in industrial areas.

However, you don't want to have a huge inventory everywhere in the city.

As a reminder, the same two pictures that I have here on the slide, we talked about last year too, during the zoning amendment.

So why am I talking about what we did last year?

The reason is it's related to what we have tonight.

So as we speak now, the CG20 district does not allow and never allow it for self storage.

And before I go into details, I would like to mention here what we see in the slide uh is self-storage.

This is a conventional self storage, meaning it's one business, all of it's self-storage.

What the applicant would like to do is to have a percentage of an example site to allow for self storage.

As we speak, it's not allowed.

And the applicant as submitted is asking for up to 15% of all the floor area in an existing building or buildings to be used as self-storage.

The slide here you see is the legal language that was submitted.

I am gonna actually use the simplified version.

I believe you can see it now.

So the simplified simplified version of what the applicant is asking for is as follows.

The applicant is saying if you have a lot of minimum five acres, and it has an existing building or buildings that are legally used as a warehouse, and the total square footage of the self storage is not gonna be more than 15%, and vehicle access is from an arterial state, and the lot is close to IL40 or IG80 zone, then a portion of that building or building could be used for self-storage.

That's in a nutshell what the applicant is asking for.

And also are saying, well, it's not going to be more than that because they are adding a provision saying in the future, if the application has submitted is approved, there will be no variances for any of the provisions that I mentioned before.

So basically, the applicant is saying, well, you should actually have some confidence that if it's approved, it cannot be bigger than what it is.

As you know, when we talk about any application, usually we talk about the plan of conservation and development.

As you can see, the application as submitted is very targeted.

Yes, it could be used in more than one location, but highly unlikely it will be applied in many areas.

That's why there's not specific policy in our POCD, the plan of conservation and development that speaks directly to the application.

However, I would like to remind you, as I mentioned before, last year, the planning commission and the zoning commission adopted changes not to allow for self-storage outside of the industrial area.

That sums up what I wanted to say about this application, and I am happy to uh open the floor for discussions if you have any questions, or if you like, you can wait for any questions until after the applicant has a chance to explain where he is coming from.

Back to you, Mr.

Chairman.

Thank you.

Um, if we could take that screen share down and appreciate it.

Give me a second.

Yeah, sure.

Take your time.

Okay, well good.

Uh, yeah, commission members.

I don't know if anybody wants to ask of uh uh the director of his any questions of his presentation this evening, or if you want to wait uh a little bit later.

Let me just give a couple matters of housekeeping for the commission members.

A CG20 zone is a is a general commercial CA80 is commercial arterial.

Um that was referenced in the uh um uh just the slide presentation to the we just saw.

Uh Commission members, any questions now, or do you want to hold off uh commission members?

Any questions?

Director, thank you.

We'll get back to you on the next turn turnaround.

So let me ask is there anyone wishing to speak in favor of this petition?

I see the hand of attorney Tom Beecher.

Attorney Beecher.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Good evening, everyone.

My name's Tom Beecher, and I'm an attorney at the Collins Hanaffin firm, and I'm representing Salem Plaza LLC.

And with me this evening is Albert Salem.

Salem Plaza owns uh, of course, makes sense.

Salem Plaza, located at 127 to 131 uh West Street.

This property is over five and a half acres, and it's located in the CG20 zone as has been discussed.

This is a mixed-use property with six buildings.

And as you drive into the property, there's an office building on the right, which includes the Social Security Office.

On the left, when you drive in, is another office building, followed by the Hillside Outreach facility, which operates out of another building.

The Office of Veterans Affairs is to the far back if you drive all the way into the uh into the back of the property.

There's also lab space in one building, and there's unused warehouse space in two buildings.

The total of the building footprints, meaning the building coverage is 77,551 square feet.

We're here tonight just to discuss a regulation and specifically for us, one particular old warehouse space.

Well, let me see if I can show you some photos.

So this is a photo looking at the warehouse space on the right of the screen, and you're looking back towards West Street.

This is a photo looking directly at the particular warehouse space we would like to use for self-storage units within the building.

Mr.

Chairman, I don't see any, I see a bunch of little pictures, but I'm not seeing the pictures as he's describing them.

Yeah, attorney Beecher, we're seeing thumbnails.

Were you intending on showing thumbnails, or did you have a way to show the bigger picture?

Well, I'm trying to show the big picture.

Oh, we're taking we're taking the look at your folder with the thumbnails inside.

Well, that's too bad.

Double click.

Double click.

I did.

Huh?

We're not getting it.

Well, that's too bad.

How about right click and open?

Right click and open.

Still nothing, right?

No, it's spinning around.

It's making a circle.

Huh?

Crazy.

Well, okay then.

All right.

Sorry about that.

That's all right.

We'll we'll squint.

Well, that's not really the ideal way to do it.

So I'll just come back.

I've never I've never seen that before.

Yeah, me neither.

Says my screen sharing has been paused.

Screen sharing has been paused.

Yeah.

Well, I apologize.

In any event, uh I don't know if anybody had a chance to drive in, but it's a it's a nice looking brick building on the left, but it's an old warehouse building that um is just sort of outdated.

The uh old warehouse space was opened in 1962 and was the home of dandy distributors, which was a produce wholesale and distribution business.

Uh Albert tells me that uh the building was modeled after the market terminal buildings in New Haven for Dandy distributors.

And Dandy operated out of this building until 1998.

Thereafter, it was uh Watson um of Danbury, which was a pharmaceutical company used the space, then Danbury Pharmacol.

The space is a challenge to lease these days because the ceiling's only 14 feet high.

And the loading bays are elevated for direct loading onto box trucks, which was originally designed for dandy distributors.

But the space is outdated now and needs a new use.

And after marketing the space now for quite a while, my client looked at other potential users and had numerous discussions with a company that retrofits old spaces in existing buildings, just like this one for indoor storage units.

This was reviewed and vetted, and the result is that such a use does not need any visible changes to the exterior of the building.

So this facility does not need to look any different than it does now with the brick facade, as I'd hope to show you in the pictures.

And that would be it.

Mr.

Salem met with the representatives of the company on site and they totally looked at it.

And this company has extensive experience in doing this type of retrofit of storage units into existing buildings.

And this site on West Street is near residential neighborhoods, which means that there's a very real micro market in this area for the storage units.

Kennedy Flats is only two or three blocks away.

That Wallid had with both myself and Mr.

Salem.

And a lot of collaboration between Wall Eed and myself in coming up with these specific requirements that we put into the proposed regulation.

Wallid was understanding of our plight, although he's remained neutral throughout in terms of this particular proposal.

Salem Plaza is a mixed-use property with over 124,500 square feet of gross floor area, which is important.

Normally in the CG20, a minimum lot size size is just 20,000 square feet, which is less than half an acre.

So as you can see, this requires a substantial amount of property in the CG20 as a threshold for even considering this type of a use.

Under our proposal, the storage units must be in an existing building that was previously used as a warehouse, as recognized by the planning and zoning department.

The gross floor area dedicated to the storage units can be no more than 15% of the overall gross floor area on the property.

As I said, the gross floor area for this particular site is 124,500 square feet, using the minimum maximum for, I mean the maximum storage units floor area can be no more than 18,675 square feet out of that 124,500 square feet.

The particular warehouse that we'd like to use for this use is actually only going to be 15,000 square feet, so not even that maximum.

And in this case, you can see if you drive in that the building faces to the side.

The proposal also prohibits any variances for any of these specific requirements so that somebody can't say, well, we're only 200 feet from the arterial road, so we'd like a variance.

Well, the variance is prohibited.

You have to be at least 250 feet.

This particular use has to be at least 250 feet back from the public road.

And lastly, this conversion use will still require a special exception from the Planning Commission.

So obviously, this regulation will only apply to a unique existing site with a large or series of large existing buildings.

And I would also point out that personal storage units is a low traffic use.

I mean, people don't typically go and visit their stuff in these units every week.

Commissioner O'Neill, I believe, last time asked how many sites in the CG20 zone have over five acres of land and have enough gross floor area to make this use worthwhile or some similar questions.

We took a look at that, and our homework is that not many would qualify, if any.

There are, I believe, only 20 properties in the CG20 zone in the city with five acres or more of land, and none of those have any warehouse other than ours.

I only found four properties in the CG20 zone that uh were over two acres that did have uh warehouse use associated with the property.

But it's unlikely that those properties could otherwise qualify.

I didn't look to see if those particular properties abutted industrial uh zoned property.

So this is a narrowly tailored uh proposal that applies to a unique property with over five acres of land and over 124,000 square feet of gross floor area.

And that's okay.

This commission has looked favorably on other regulations with very limited applicability.

As I said to this commission uh in relation to other project proposals, this is a proposal that allows for the appropriate reuse and reimagination of a building that has become obsolete in this day and age.

One example of that was the summit, the summit building.

The changes to the PND regulations uh to accommodate mixed uses in the 1.2 million square foot summit building is a huge example of this commission having the vision to allow a change in the regulations in order to allow reuse and reimagination to take a dinosaur building and give it new life.

No other property in Danbury qualified for that particular proposal and changes to the regulation.

Excuse me.

There's quite a few other instances where this commission has had the vision to approve other similar narrowly tailored regulation changes.

This commission allowed a narrow change in the IL 40 regulations to allow a new Mercedes, a new Mercedes car dealership, as long as the site was within 1,000 feet of another car dealership located in the CG20 zone.

Auto dealerships are not otherwise permitted in the IL 40 zone, but in this particular case, if you're in the IL 40 zone, but you're within a thousand feet of an existing car dealer in CG20 zone, it was okay.

That was a very narrow, narrowly tailored regulation change that this commission approved.

And the new dealership's beautiful.

So it was an appropriate decision.

And speaking of Myrie Brook Road, this commission adopted a new regulation in 2023 to allow limited sales of high-end cars in the IL 40 zone for the North American Motor Car Company.

Again, car sales are not otherwise allowed in the IL 40 zone.

But this was a very narrowly tailored zoning amendment, as are all of the examples I'm giving you tonight.

Last year you approved a regulation change in the CA80 zone that allowed for a very narrowly focused type of light manufacturing in the commercial zone, which assisted a facility owned by Blackstone Industries to relocate to Prindle Lane off of Mill Plain Road.

For that use, as you may recall, the required minimum lot size was three acres.

In 2019, the commission adopted a very limited use and definition for transitional housing facilities in the residential high-rise zone to allow the women's center of Greater Danbury to be built on Rose Hill Avenue.

In 2016, the Commission adopted a narrowly tailored continuing care facility regulation to allow the Keystone Place assisted living facility to be located at the top of Worcester Heights in the IL 40 zone, where it wasn't otherwise allowed, with some very narrow constraints.

And this commission adopted a narrowly tailored amendment to the CA80 zone to allow the transformation of the old Crown Plaza Hotel into meaningful and affordable housing in the city of Danbury.

So this commission has used its legislative power in forward-thinking manner to allow for retrofitting existing buildings and reimagined uses of certain properties.

And this commission has been forward thinking in allowing certain narrowly tailored amendments that posed little risk of overapplication throughout a zone.

This type of regulation is an appropriate approach to adaptive reuse of existing large buildings on large properties, and therefore would be beneficial to the city as well as to my client.

This proposal does not impact health safety or welfare in the city of Danbury.

What's adaptive reuse?

It's a planning concept which promotes the reuse and reimagination of existing buildings for a purpose or purposes other than what those buildings were originally built for.

It's the repurposing and the rejuvenation of obsolete buildings.

Adaptive reuse is a smart growth and sustainability opportunity because adaptive reuse is a tool to avoid demolition, avoid extensive site disturbance or environmental impact and urban sprawl.

Isn't it better in numerous ways not to have to tear down and rebuild a large building if the building itself can be repurposed?

Our proposed regulation amendment seeks to allow adaptive reuse or retrofitting of an obsolete and underutilized industrial building on a very large site.

It's reuse and repurposing, uh repurposing what you already have.

It's a form of urban recycling, and we should all embrace it.

This commission has broad legislative power in looking at and adopting regulation amendments as well as in repealing them.

And the Connecticut statutes give this commission that power and authority.

Now, as Wally mentioned, the Planning Commission gave this a negative referral.

There were only three commissioners present that evening, and under Danbury's procedures, the applicant and I are not permitted to speak at that proceeding.

The important result of that negative referral is that, as I pointed out last time, if this commission sees fit to approve this regulation change, by statute, we need six affirmative votes from this commission, not a simple majority.

But this commission has in the past approved uh regulation changes despite a negative referral.

Now let me talk about uh consistency with the plan of conservation and development.

When you act legislatively as a zoning commission, you certainly also look at thoughtful planning as part of your review of a zone change or regulation change.

Strategy number six of the POCD encourages flexibility in the commercial zoning regulations, such as the CG20 zone, to respond to current and future market conditions.

Uses for a terminal-style single-story warehouse space is dried up, and that leaves behind a skeleton that needs a new type of use that will not require tearing down the structure, but rather will allow that space to be retrofitted for a bright and productive new life.

Honestly, this regulation is so narrowly focused, it will not have any impact on the POCD one way or the other.

In other words, this is not impacting the purpose and intent of the CG20 zone because it's only five acres out of the entire zone, with the slim likelihood that any other property would qualify or even want this use on their particular property.

And as Wall Lee pointed out in his report, our proposal may be viewed more as a site specific solution rather than any broad policy shift.

So along those lines, I recognize that last October 14th, this commission took self-storage out of the CAD zone regulations entirely.

And I appreciate that there may be some people that think there's an overproliferation of self-storage facilities in the city of Danbury.

And maybe a dislike for how they look as well.

However, allowing them throughout a zone, or the actual look of these new self-storage big box buildings that have been built, is apples and oranges compared to our proposal to retrofit the storage units into an existing building without the need for any exterior changes to the building or the look of the building.

And again, this applies in very limited instances.

Our proposal is to use an existing brick warehouse building on property abutting industrial land under limited circumstances where this would be applicable.

This proposed use is a transitional use between that industrial zone that abuts this property and this property itself.

That is good planning.

It's a transitional use.

Approving this regulation is therefore simply not contrary to your policy decision with respect to widely eliminating self-storage facilities from the CA80 zone.

I would also point out that Salem Plaza's interest in this warehouse conversion use.

And our discussions with Wall E began well before October of last year when this commission uh took that use out of the CA80 zone.

I began my discussions with Wallie back in May of last year.

And Wallid met with Mr.

Salem and myself last July to see the facility and learn more about our proposal.

And Wall Eid was very helpful in suggesting some specific requirements, as you will, as you see in this proposal, you have before you.

So I just wanted to point that out because this idea didn't come up after you had taken uh that step last October to prohibit uh the self-storage units uh in the CA80 zone.

But in any event, like I said, this is apples and oranges.

This isn't allowing this property to be um demoed and put up a brand new multi-story uh big box uh self-storage facility.

This is taking 15,000 out of 124,500 square feet of an existing building, over 300 feet from the road for this particular use.

So, in conclusion, we're asking you to allow this minor flexibility here.

Again, it's very limited in its applicability.

So, through you, Mr.

Chairman, I would just ask if Mr.

Salem had anything he might want to add at this point in time.

Absolutely.

Mr.

Salem, did you have anything that you wanted to add?

As if anyone that's from Denver would know the building was actually built in the late 50s as a replica of basically the New Haven market.

It's a narrow long building, very low ceilings.

And modern warehouses are mostly very high queue, um dimensional in the sense that they're uh pretty proportionate, almost square, very, very limited and rectangular space.

The other thing is that you know, one of the things the planning commission had mentioned is that they had never seen a building that was retrofit.

I want to mention that where U-Haul is, that used to be a first national grocery store, which is now self-storage as long as well as um truck rental, which is not even a quarter of a mile from where our facility is, and that's direct road frontage.

Whereas ours is, as uh Tony Beecher said, 300 feet back.

There's going to be no noticeable changes to the building.

And what they would be for those that are familiar with the single story, they're basically 10 by 10 by 100.

And they are, you know, maximum height is 11 feet, which will fit under the 14-foot clearance.

And they are 100 feet long, which fit in the building.

The building is roughly 60 by 150.

So it's a very narrow long building, not practical for warehousing.

And that is the reason why back in 1998, we moved the dandy distributor business out of there to Loplane Road, the bigger building that we had, which was a higher higher queue.

Um we've exhausted our possibilities of trying to lease it to any viable warehouse or manufacturing or any of the above.

Um, and this was probably the best use with the least amount of impact that we could come up with.

So if you guys, you know, honestly consider rather than having to tear the building down, we're really at uh an impasse as far as practicality for the use of the facility.

Thank you.

If you would, Mr.

Salem, just state state your name and address for the record.

My name is Albert J.

Salem the third for Navajo Drive, and it's spelled NAVAHO Rookfield, Connecticut.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Commissioner members.

Well, we have uh Mr.

Salem.

Any questions of Mr.

Salem, Commissioner members?

And then I'll ask you if you have any questions of uh the presentation of attorney beecher, commission members.

I don't see any hands, I don't hear any voices.

Thank you, Mr.

Salem.

You're welcome, Chairman.

Uh Attorney Beecher.

Did you have anything else?

No, thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

That concludes our presentation.

We thank you all for your consideration, and I would just ask you to uh please consider uh granting this application.

Thank you.

Commissioner members anything of attorney beecher at this time, Commissioner members.

Uh I see, I see Commissioner Botello.

Go ahead.

Yes, thank you.

Thank you for the floor.

Attorney Beecher, I just wanted a little clarification here.

I'm looking at the petition to amend the zoning regulation application, and I'm reading it, and it uh it says applicant proposes these amendments to permit retrofitting a self-service storage use in existing warehouse of buildings, as in plural.

Is that a typo, or is that more than one building is going to be considered for warehousing?

Well, that's not it's not a typo, Mr.

Botello.

Uh we're crafting a regulation that conceivably could apply to someone else.

Where the in our particular case, it's just that one building, but it could conceivably be uh someone who had two small warehouses and wanted to use it.

But remember that you're constrained by only being allowed to use 15% of the total gross floor area of whatever's on the particular site that comes in to actually use the uh have this self-storage use.

Okay, so this actually opens itself up to be able to use on other properties as well when you are going for an application with uh being in someone similar in nature to what this application is.

Well, like I said, uh I couldn't find any properties that are likely to come close to qualifying.

Okay, thank you.

Commissioner Botello, if I can let me just say that when when the when the attorney beecher drafts the petition, since it's not site specific, he's basically drafting it for the um the uh it's a regulation that's basically citywide and not site specific specific.

So he put in buildings plural in his case, they only have one building.

I think the critical uh verbiage in this is where they lock themselves into a certain percentage of what they can do with the warehouse space.

So in reality, if we were looking at a petition, it had one building or two building or or three buildings.

When you have that cap of 15%, I think that's more critical in the scheme of things than um whether it was plural or singular for um, you know, it's gonna be singular for this particular parcel, but in drafting the regulation, um, he put down plural.

Is that correct, attorney beecher?

Did I use this?

Yeah, and the other the other requirements, you know, also hedge against too many properties qualifying because remember, you know, we're we're unique.

You go into this site and the buildings all face each other sideways, not particularly towards the street, except for the two front office building.

So not only, you know, even if it's two buildings, they can't face the street, and they also have to be at least 250 feet away from the street.

So there's a lot of things that mitigated against this being um applied anywhere else, or certainly very limited, if it if at all.

One other question I have between the applicant and attorney Beecher.

But I went down to look at the the application.

Are we looking at the building that was once Chatham Oaks in the front, which was a catering hall?

And this application is part of the back of that.

It is the building after it, it's the red brick building, is attorney beecher pointed out.

But is it connected?

That's connected to that long because it seemed like it's it's it's it's it it is connected, but there's no pass through.

There are concrete walls in between.

So it's a it's a separate building.

Okay, separate utilities, separate everything.

And the the part of the building that was used for Chatham Oaks, is that's being facilitated now, or that's the news.

That is that is the Department of Children's Family Services.

Okay.

Those are offices.

Thank you.

So everything everything past that building, Commissioner Botello.

That's that's rented as office space.

Everything past that, which is brick is down to the end, which is about uh 150 feet down.

Um is what is in what we are calling the brick warehouse.

And if you take a look at it, it's a brick warehouse.

There's actually two buildings on the left before you get to this one.

Oh, well, thank you.

Sure.

Anything else, Commission members?

Commissioner members, anything else at this time?

Uh we'll come back to you, Attorney Beecher, if there's anything to rebut.

Uh, but let me also ask is there anyone else wishing to speak in favor of this petition?

Anyone else wishing to speak in favor of this petition?

Anyone else wishing to speak in favor of this petition?

Joanne and Ms.

Reed, there's is anyone else on this um on this broadcast?

No, just the commission members, Mr.

Salem, Mattorney Beecher, you, me, and Waleed.

Thank you.

Uh, then let me call for the public only.

Is there anyone which doesn't exist, but is there anyone wishing to speak in opposition to this petition?

Anyone wishing to speak in opposition to this petition?

Anyone wishing to speak in opposition to this petition?

Attorney Beecher, do you want to rebut anything that you just heard?

No, thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Commissioner members, your final shot for attorney beecher here.

Attorney Beecher, I I think I see a hand.

Uh Commissioner Lawton.

Unmute and uh you have the floor.

Right, unmute it by touching my box.

There you go.

You know, there does seem to be a lot of storage Unix, and the question is what financial impact will this have on existing facilities in terms of competition to make this one either succeed or not succeed or affecting other ones.

Well, you know, as I alluded to earlier in my presentation, I think that this particular location, you know, it's a double-edged sword.

The our particular location has drawbacks where we can't really use it for warehouse space anymore.

It's just outdated.

But this particular location is near residential neighborhoods and uh some housing complexes, and therefore we're all we're further away from most of the facilities, with the exception of the one uh at the U-Hall uh facility that that Albert mentioned.

But beyond that, um, you know, I think that's it's ripe for at least a micro market there in this particular section of the city.

Okay.

Thank you.

Uh Commissioner O'Neill.

Okay, let me lower my hand.

Um so I just want to um ask or make a statement that this is almost different, like when we removed um self-storage from whatever zone we're talking about, like those big huge buildings that had no uh we didn't have anything in the red to control what they look like, and this is like self-contained, it's not changing anything of the look of the building.

So it's almost it's almost a little bit of a different animal than what we think of when we think of self-storage.

I just kind of wanted to point that out and see if anyone had any um personal opinions about that or input on that.

Well, I I think when we first uh I don't know, director.

We had a I think we had a couple meetings first.

You basically hit us bluntly saying, What do you guys here want to do in Dambray?

What do you what do you like?

What do you not like?

We tossed around some ideas, and one of the things we came up with were free-standing ugly storage facilities, and then you went to work on it.

I think Commissioner Botello said he talked about it and got the ball rolling on that, and the two that were the ones that you showed on that slide presentation.

So, Commissioner O'Neil, there's a lot of reasons that we took that out of the CA80 zone, and that is because freestanding storage buildings were um popping up all over town, and especially the CA80 zone.

Uh, but they are really ugly and disgusting.

Um, and uh if you could take uh a facility like like this that's hiding in the corner that's brick that's historical, it it changes things.

And you know, I'm gonna um I'm I'm glad we got those in favor and those opposed out of the um off the record here because we're now down into the closing statements and the rebuttal.

So let me address uh Commissioner O'Neill say a couple other things.

This is different.

Um, this it's a shame that we remove the storage facilities only seems like moments ago from our regulations when this was right there on its heels.

Um, it was almost a matter of days before maybe they beat us to the beat us to the punch.

Um so it's a shame that it happened um that way.

The this is a different animal, in my opinion.

It's a mixed-use parcel, it's a different zone, although they're both commercial.

Um I I think uh attorney Beecher, and don't get a big head and pat yourself on the back, uh, attorney beecher, but he hit this commission right between the eyes when he took all the historical data of this commission and how creative we have been in the past uh to move things along and to progress this community by allowing things like this to happen.

And he and he cited some other uh uh quite a bit, quite a few instances um that we've taken action on prior to and and are considering this one as well.

So you're correct there, and um I see uh the director has his hands up, so let me see what that's what's on his mind.

Director.

Unmute if you would, director.

There you go.

Mr.

Chairman, if you look at the reports that I sent to the commission, you will see that I am making a distinction between what I call conventional self-storage and what we have.

So I made it very clear also to the planning commission that what we talked about last year was a conventional self-storage, which is basically what I showed you, and the one we have here tonight is different.

It's more like one use among many other uses.

However, that being said, just to uh to be clear about what the planning commission said, they did not see this distinction at this stage because in their meeting the amendments were done last year, and it would be something like that we do very quickly, and it would, in their view, undermine what was done last year.

That being said, also there's one point I would like to comment on that was mentioned by attorney Pitcher.

Yes, we had the discussion last year, maybe I'm not sure, May, but what he doesn't know by that time, we already started the discussion internally in the zoning commission.

Yes, it was officially adopted in October 2025, but the discussion started way before.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

I'm happy to uh talk about any point if you need any clarifications.

You're muted.

I cannot hear you.

You are muted.

Thank you.

Sorry, Commissioner O'Neill.

I just want to make sure that we addressed uh your concerns or your question.

Yeah, I think um both of you clarified it.

So thank you for your input.

Thank you.

Uh Commission members, anything else at this time?

Any questions of attorney beecher and his in his uh last statement here before we go on to the director, commissioner members.

Anything else?

Director, uh Attorney Beecher, go ahead.

I'm sorry.

Yeah, thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Uh I just wanted to react to what uh Wally just said.

You know, as I said, we aren't allowed to speak at the Planning Commission.

And at the Planning Commission, it was they were not reminded at all about the very difference between this proposal and the big box proposals, and they weren't reminded at all about the laundry list that I just went through with all of you tonight about how this commission has in fact looked at very finely tailored regulations for a particular niche in a particular zone.

So you know they were operating without our input essentially.

Thank you.

Uh thank you.

Uh director, did you have your hand up?

Yeah, just it's always the case with the planning commission.

I know attorney beacher know this.

So there's not much I can do about it.

However, during my presentation to the planning commission, I have pictures, and I mentioned that this is what you last the year decided not to include.

However, which I mentioned also, what we have at hand during that meeting.

I mean, the application is different.

Right.

And Commissioner members, let me also go back to another issue for the new new members here.

Um again, this is not site specific.

This means that it can go citywide.

However, um we have in the past, during a negotiation between the petitioner and the and the staff, takes some of these things so as to not have a wide sweeping proliferation throughout the city.

They they fine-tune these and they put these restrictions on they try to zero in as neatly and as finely as possible so that it's it's we don't want to call it site specific, but it does narrow it down quite a bit.

So the commission does not have to worry about these popping up all over um to see a 1950s, uh you know, 60 by 150 brick warehouse and some other site in Danbris, all of a sudden a whole bunch of them popping up and becoming warehouses.

Isn't anything that we have to fear?

Um so I just wanted to also uh also point that out.

Uh attorney beech, are you done?

I am thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Beautiful.

Uh director, did you want to close us out?

And then I'll ask for questions from commission members.

Commission members, anything of other director before he closes it out.

Commission members.

Commission members, nothing.

We're good now.

Director.

Thanks again, Mr.

Chairman.

I will repeat what I mentioned during the planning commission meeting, even though I know some of the planning commission were not really super happy about it.

I'm still torn between the two sides.

I would say of the equation.

I see the point of the application, and I know because I have been talking to the owner and attorney beach that it's such a difficult site.

And I know they have been trying hard to find a use for it.

And what was done, I mean the application was a lot of collaboration between attorney beecher and myself.

So the way it was actually submitted, all the condition that you have seen in the submission.

It was a lot of discussions, and from my point of view, it gives you as a zoning commission assurance that if this application is to be approved, it wouldn't be all over the city.

Yes, it's a specific.

So yes, it can happen somewhere else, but the likelihood of that is not really high.

At the same time, as I mentioned to the planning commission, I totally understand their position, and I totally understand why they were hesitant, because in their mind in their judgment, they didn't want to undermine what was done last year.

And I understand they also didn't want to send a message that way.

We do a lot of changes and we turn a blind eye and you just do not really follow them.

So it's not an easy situation, but if you approve it, I'm happy.

If you decide not, I'm still happy.

That's all that I can say.

There you go.

You a new a neutral staff report.

Uh Commission members, anything of uh Director Waleed.

Uh, we're not waiting on any documents or exhibits.

So someone here, if they'd like, can make a motion to close this public hearing.

Uh Commissioner Botello.

Mr.

Chairman, I'd like to make a motion to close this public hearing.

Commission members, there's a motion by Commissioner Botello to close a public hearing with a second by Commissioner Nee James.

Any discussion?

Any discussion?

All those in favor signify by saying aye.

I'm not seeing any hands on opposition or voices unanimously.

This uh public hearing is closed.

Thank you, everyone.

Mr.

Chairman.

Uh I'm I'm sorry, I'm writing and didn't see your hand.

Go ahead.

Commissioner Botello, is that you?

Yes, yes.

I'd like to I'd like to make a motion to place this in old business for discussion and possible action tonight.

Uh okay.

Commission members, there is a motion by Commissioner Botello to move this to old business for discussion and possible action.

Uh tonight.

Uh, number one on the agenda under that subheading.

Is there a second?

Second.

Second by Commissioner Hall.

Any discussion?

All those in favor signify by saying aye.

All right, fine.

All those opposed.

Any opposition?

No.

Uh thank you.

Commission members, tonight on our old business for discussion of possible action.

We have a petition of Salem Plaza, LLC to amend sections 5A2, 585, and 11B3 of the zoning regulations.

The public hearing was open on February 10th, 2026 at 7 p.m.

And it was closed on February 10th, 2026.

Uh I don't know if anybody wants to put a motion on the floor for discussion purposes only.

Um, Commissioner Botello.

Yes.

I I move that the zoning commission deny this application, seeking approval for to permit a self-storage facility within the CG20 zoning district based upon the following findings.

Number one, the commission has previously undertaken a comprehensive review of self-storage facilities within the city of Danbury and has determined that there is an existing oversupply of self-storage uses.

Allowing additional self-storage facilities would be inconsistent with that finding and contrary to sound land use planning principles.

Number two, the CG20 zoning district represents a limited and valuable commercial land resource intended to support commercial employment generating and economic development uses.

The proposed self-storage use does not further the primary purpose intent of the CG20 zone.

Number three, the proposal is inconsistent with the city of Danbury Plan of a conservation and POCD, which emphasizes the preservation of commercially zoned land for uses that promote economic vitality, employment opportunities, and long-term community benefit.

The POCD does not support the expansion of self-storage facilities within the CG20 zone properties.

Number four, the applicant has not demonstrated a change in circumstances or new evidence sufficient to warrant reversing the commission's prior determination regarding regarding the oversupply of self-service facilities or altering the established zoning policy for CG20's uh properties.

Number five, the market-based may start, I'm sorry, the market-based arguments regarding current lack of demand for warehouse or commercial space are speculative and reflect short-term economic conditions, which do not justify a permanent zoning decision that would diminish limited CG20 commercial land availability.

Number six.

Oops, I'm sorry.

Number six, approval of this application would establish a precedent for similar requests on other CG20 parcels, resulting in cumulative impacts that would undermine the integrity of the city zoning framework work and long-term planning objectives.

For these reasons, the commercial the commission finds that the application does not meet the standards of zoning regulations and is not in the best interest of the orderly development of the city, and therefore should be done denied.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Commission members, there is a motion with reasons to deny the petition by Commissioner Botello.

Is there a second to that motion?

Is there a second to that motion?

Is there a second to that motion?

Uh Commissioner O'Lachlin, is your hand up?

I'll second that.

So there's a second to that motion.

So we have a motion with reasons and a second.

So Commissioner members, we'll open this up for discussion.

Now is the time to discuss your feelings about this.

Anyone want to take any steps on that?

I'd like to say sure.

Go ahead.

Commissioner Nee Jane.

Thank you, Teddy.

I believe based on what Albert Salem uh properties.

Says in regard to it's a non-conforming lot.

The actual uh property or the actual building is not a storefront building right at the street.

It's actually hidden.

Um I think it's a revitalation, revitalization of a uh existing building.

Uh I would have to say that I think it would be uh in the best interest of this city uh to adopt this uh for uh you know this particular property and obviously with the constraints uh of things not popping popping up all over the place uh in the city uh with what they uh put into the regulation.

I think uh I think it's uh a good uh rehab of an existing uh building.

Thank you.

Um I saw somebody else had a hand up.

Uh uh Commissioner James, I see you.

We're there you go.

Go ahead.

Um, I would agree.

I I would hate to see a building that you know has could have a different use be torn down because no one wants to buy it, no one wants to rent it, no one wants to use it, but now we have an alternative use for that building, and to keep it vital in that location might be beneficial to the neighborhood and to the community.

But now we have an alternative use for that building, and to keep it vital in that location might be beneficial to the neighborhood and to the community.

I would hate to see it torn down and there just be an empty space on that property.

So I think that it's a good alternative to what was there.

Um, and it does not conform with the other self-storage units that line uh Mill Plain Road, which is what we objected to to begin with.

It is a different format.

Um I think it would be more pleasing for the community in the format that it is right now, in terms of being a brick building and not uh a behemoth uh factory or uh or a warehouse.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Uh Commissioner, let me uh uh Commissioner Votell, let me see if let me see if there's anybody else that wants to say something and I'll squeeze it back and get somebody else new here.

Anybody else, new commission members want to just uh throw something out?

Any other thing from any commission members?

Commissioner O'Neill.

Um I have to agree that I think it is a revitalization of that building.

I think that it's um that attorney Beecher put together uh with the director are very specific criteria.

Um that it's not gonna be a proliferation all over town, that it's a benefit to the community.

Um that it is different exactly, like it's not the big box crazy things that are out on millplay, and it's not um gonna be a visual ISOR when it's done, it's gonna be something that's positive for the community.

Thank you.

Uh anything else if any commissioners want to just uh throw a statement out there either way.

Mr.

Commissioner, it's it's Bruce Bennett.

Hey, Commissioner Bennett, yes, go ahead.

Sure.

Um I I have a couple of thoughts.

One is um what I hate to see happen is that anybody has a building or a piece of land, they turn it into a storage facility, and I get the feeling that's what's happening.

And I've been there, so I I I get that and I understand it.

I I would hate to see the city turn into a group of storage facilities in every building that's old, brick or wood.

Uh, I just wouldn't want like to see that.

Yeah, the other problem or issue I have for that particular piece of property, it's very tight for parking in the front of it.

There is no parking in the front of it.

So I don't know what happens in the back.

I would almost think that before I vote on it, I'd like to take a look at it and see exactly what your plans are, where you're going with this thing.

And can I pull my truck in there to unload?

Um, I uh I I think that's that's they are my biggest concerns to fix that old building up.

I think it's a wonderful idea.

Uh it's just is it the right spot?

I don't know.

Uh does it bring some taxes to the city?

I don't know about that either.

I know it doesn't bring any employment to the city, but it does bring some tax money, I would hope.

Uh and then I think my biggest concern is the parking to pull in.

It's really tough.

So if they fix that problem, I I would be probably more in favor of it.

Well, they'd be meeting the regular, they'd be meeting the regulations on parking, or they wouldn't be able to do anything in there.

Oh, okay.

Yeah.

I mean, I didn't really absolutely.

Um, and as far as uh unloading and loading when people bring in their furniture, that used to be the whole front of it is a loading dock.

Um, I'm sure they'll just set aside a portion of it so as to not interrupt the rest of the building.

But that's that goes to another department, not here.

Um, anything else?

Any commission members before I go to uh Commissioner Botello.

Uh not hearing anything for any other new commission members.

Uh Commissioner Botello.

Yes, thank you for the floor, Chairman.

Uh basically, I want to speak to all the commissioners to remind us that we are the zoning commission, which we part of our job is to protect what is there.

And the fact is that you can say anything about possibly making changes, but once again, this is in the CG20 district, which is very limited in the city.

And once again, it's it's behooves us to protect what the CG20 is.

And once again, I'll read it.

The zoning for a CG20 represent a limited and valuable commercial land resources intended to support commercial employment generating and economic development uses.

When you go into self-storage, you're gonna have two, three people possibly working there, maybe.

This is not what the CG20 has in mind.

It's not the best and highest use for it, which I don't have to say that, but the fact is is that CG20 being limited, is that there are other things that can be done there.

And if you could use the CG20 the way it's supposed to be, it'll be generating more, it'll be better for the the uh income for taxes as well as hopefully employing more people.

But that's what CG20 is all about is to get more employment and to be able to be commercially supporting, and having a blank building with just warehousing or with self-storage is not what the CG20 was intended for, and that's our job as the policeman to it make sure that this is adhered to.

I just want people to realize that don't forget we're talking about the CG20 and what it's permissible and not permissible.

Thank you.

Commissioner Members.

Any uh Commissioner O'Neil.

Um it's existing warehouse, though.

Like, I don't see that as a big income generator the way that it said it is either.

Um sorry, say again, what do you mean?

Is it exist if it's an existing warehouse?

Commissioner of Tello right now, it's vacant that it had been a warehouse.

Yeah, there's no reason why it couldn't be converted to CG20 application, which would be resident, you know, for commercial and and be able to it has the ability.

I mean, for many different uses in CG20.

Well, I couldn't, I mean, I couldn't see storefronts there.

If you take a look at the building, it's lifted up off of the road.

You know, when people walk into storefronts, they want to get out of our car and walk into a storefront.

This is raised up chest high.

You know, I hey, you know what?

Look, look, I haven't given my opinion yet.

When I saw this application come in, if I can't, well, let me let's finish up here.

Commissioner O'Neill and Commissioner Botello, you guys have some words.

Are you finished or do you want to continue on?

Commissioner O'Neill, you all said okay.

Um when I saw the petition come in, uh you know, I I'm saying, what the heck are we gonna do here?

You know, to be very frank, uh the the petition looks ugly on paper because we just got finished getting rid of these things.

But when you hear the when you take a look at the property as mixed use and you take a look at the history of the property and you take a look at uh what they can do here, yeah, there's there's there's 52 permitted uses in there, but I don't think anybody's gonna put in a 18,675 square foot ice cream ice cream parlor.

Uh dude, there's a lot of stuff in those permitted uses, it just isn't not gonna go in that brick building.

And um, you know, I know that they marketed it to try and rent it out as as a warehouse space, but they also tried to market the matrix building up there, it had low ceilings and it was an old 1980s building, and it took the zoning commission to get creative and and and uh read reuse and re-regulation to get that up and running, and it's fully functional and filled and paying nice taxes to this to the city.

You know, like I said, on paper, the petition doesn't look good, but listening to the public hearing and um reading all of the documents and getting everybody's opinion on this thing here.

Um, it's and the POCD and encourages flexibility as as the market changes, and this is narrow enough that it's not going to be widespread throughout the community, and it's using an existing building where the where the structure and the character of that building is not going to change, it's going to remain the same from the parents standpoint.

Um, these warehouses that we denied were 600, 700, 800 units, and they're in big ugly freestanding buildings.

The most they're gonna do here is 15,000 square feet, um, which they're allowed to do 18,600, but the building is only 15,000.

So if you break that down, they're gonna have, and if they have some larger units other than a 10 by 10, you know, that's gonna be less than 125, 140 units, maybe 150 max and a 10 by 10, then you got to back out of it hell hall space and common space.

So it's not gonna be a big gigantic facility, it's not gonna have major parking and uh drive-throughs because these as attorney beetra said, not many people visit their couches that often.

I have furniture in storage, and I haven't seen my furniture from the house that I sold in uh in 10 months.

I'm not interested in visiting it, you know.

So it doesn't get much traffic.

Um, I you know, I when when petitions like this come in and a petitioner says, I've tried, I've tried, I've tried to try and market it.

You know, I don't really know how hard they've tried, and if this is just a ruse to change the petition or to get a higher and best use out of it, but you know, if if you followed the market, um that's just not a rentable building, unless you do something creative, and um, you know, he it looks like he did his homework.

He's called in a company that retrofits these things, and um I don't know.

Uh there's a there's as many reasons to say yes as there is to say no, I suppose.

So we'll find out what the outcome is shortly.

Director.

Mr.

Chairman, yes.

Just one point to add uh when you were talking about uh all what you did to try to get a tenant.

Uh, when you were talking about uh all what they did to try to get a tenant, I know for sure our city's economic development advisor, Mr.

Fali Santos.

He was involved and he couldn't, like, you know, it didn't work out.

He tried to help uh the folks uh secure somebody who might be interested in a lease, but as far as I know when talking to him, nobody was interested.

So I know that they did the homework and the tied more than once to find somebody willing to enter into a long-term release, but unfortunately, it did not work out.

You know, I wouldn't be surprised, and I'm not putting any words in the in the owner's mouth, but uh I wouldn't be surprised if they had possible tenants for that, that there was other constraints to the parcel.

So I see that in one of the permitted uses is a restaurant, so that would be a really cutesy Norwalkie type of brick building and put a nice fancy restaurant in there, and there's nobody gonna be able to park there because of the way it's set up.

Parking for self-storage works because it's not intensive.

So uh I don't know.

I'm just throwing out my ideas here, and I usually like to speak last to not influence anybody else here, but you know, I asked and asked and asked for people's what's on people's minds, and I think I squeezed you all enough.

Um, so that that's why I I took a position on it.

Um other discussion on this.

I would I I would have to agree with you.

Uh I think the only reason why we're discussing this, you know, in a negative way is because of the what we did in October.

Had we not done that in the uh what we did in October, it'd be it'd be done.

The reality is we're you know, they're literally looking to repurpose a building.

The parking is very limited, it's a very narrow area.

Uh the traffic uh going in and out is gonna be limited.

So for all of those reasons, uh I would have to say this is the proper thing for the city of Danbury, with uh uh the only negative is our decision we made in October.

So you know, we've got to look at it and say, hey, what's you know what what do we really have here?

We have uh an old building that uh can be repurposed, and uh I think it's I think it's a good thing, and I think we have to you know swallow the pill and say, okay, uh as long as we're not gonna you know uh promote multiple multiple problems throughout the city.

Uh I'm sorry, I have to say this is a good thing to repurpose the building.

Just wondering and it's funny because if we didn't do if we didn't have October's actions, we may have been looking at this petition totally differently tonight.

Exactly.

Commissioner Botello.

You know, and another thing, too.

This is this is gonna be a single level, it's not gonna be a multi-level facility either.

So it's all gonna be all on one floor.

I'm sorry, Commissioner Botello.

That's okay.

But the fact is is that we did uh come to an agreement and understanding in October, and with all due respect to Mr.

Nietzsche, it was an important decision and it was well founded.

And I I don't I think this is application is undermining what we did, and I still steadfast on we that we did the right thing, and we do have an oversupply, and it's just something that we need to not push and not leave an in uh door slightly open, so this is gonna happen other places, and this could happen.

I mean, it might be limited, but it opens the door.

Well, if you did it for them, it's possibility.

Why can't you do it for me?

And if it's we did it for five acres, why can't you do it for three acres?

We were steadfast on that decision, and it was a good one, and I want to stand by that.

And the fact is is that it's a CG20, and that's our uh that's our job to protect the zone, and this is not protecting the zone.

Now don't lose sight of the fact that if somebody comes in and says you did it for five, why can't you do it for three?

We always reserve the right to say no.

Well, that's true.

That's true.

But once once again, about that.

No, you know, because we had that conversation on Crom Plaza.

If another hotel comes in and says, wait a minute, you you did it on six acres, we have 5.4.

Can you drop it to five?

The answer is we can always say no.

So listen, and Commissioner Botello, there's a lot of reasons why we did what we did in October.

We did it because they're big ugly buildings, and we also did it because we want to preserve some CA80 land for something other than many storage facilities, you know.

So by removing it from the regulations, we did it for several reasons, not just not just one, not because they were overpopulating it.

That was just one of them.

The other one was if you remove it from the regulation, that means the next guy that's got a C80 piece of property is going to do something more CA80-ish instead of another mini warehouse.

So, you know, I don't, I I totally agree with what we did in October.

And I think it was unanimous, and we were strong and firm, and it was a great denial.

It was a great move change to the regulation.

Um Commissioner O'Neill.

Um I'm gonna say that, Commissioner Battle that I do totally agree that the decision that we made in October was right for the right reasons.

Um but I just disagree that this is not the same thing.

This is not visible from the road, it's in a pre-existing building.

It's just great.

If if we had a word in the regulation to call it something different, it would be something different.

It's just never been defined before.

No one's asked to maybe do it before.

Um, so I don't see it.

I understand that it can look bad, like we're going back on something we just did.

I I fully understand that, but I don't feel like that's what we're doing here.

I think we're um making the town better and doing something important for Danbury.

And um, I know you're talking about the the commercial zone and taking away from the commercial zone, but it's not producing anything right now, the way it is either.

And by retrofitting it, I think it's something positive.

And I think it has the way that attorney Beecher wrote it, that there's very little impact from future people being able to replicate this situation.

Just my thoughts.

Thank you.

Director, you had your hand raised, chairman.

One point here.

One thing I would like to point out.

What we did back in October, yes, it's a summation with what we have.

However, it's different.

What we have this application is for a CG20 zone.

We did not touch that zone back in October.

So simple storage was never allowed in CG20 in October or before.

What we did in October was C 80.

I just don't want to seem to be mixing up.

Correct.

That's right.

Um, okay, thank you.

Commissioner members, anything else?

Anyone else have any comments?

Anyone else have any comments?

Okay, so this is where it gets confusing.

So there's a motion on the floor to deny with reasons, and there's a second to that motion.

So we're gonna do a roll call, and a yes means no.

So, in other words, if you vote yes, you're in favor of denying the petition.

If you vote yes, you're in favor of denying the petition.

If you vote no, you're against the motion to deny.

So when I do a roll call, I the the motion maker, Commissioner Botello.

If he's still on his position, he would be voting yes to deny the petition.

All right, does everybody understand that?

Everybody unmute uh everyone unmute your your mics, and we're gonna do a roll call, Mr.

Chairman.

Yes.

So if this motion doesn't carry, yeah, we got a whole bull right.

Then we gotta go the other way.

I just wanted to make sure that okay.

Yep, yep.

So it gets that's why I said it gets a little complicated.

We'll see what happens.

Uh Commissioner Botello, a yes to deny.

Yes.

All right, so uh oops, where are you?

Commissioner Botello is yes to deny.

Uh Commissioner O'Lachlin.

No, uh Commissioner Bennett.

No, Commissioner Hall.

No, Commissioner James.

No.

Commissioner Nee Jane.

No.

Commissioner O'Neil.

No.

Commissioner Fuchs.

No.

One, two, two.

I will vote no.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine.

So this motion to deny gets defeated.

Uh, eight to one.

Now that does not mean that the petition is approved.

Someone needs to make a motion to approve the petition, and then it still has to get six votes.

Correct?

Everybody understand that?

Has to be a supermajority.

So the motion to deny gets defeated.

Is there anyone want to make a motion to approve this petition?

Does anyone want to make a motion to approve the petition?

I'll make a motion, Teddy, but you can give the analogy.

Let me give me two seconds.

Salem petition number two.

Number one.

This is a motion to approve.

So motion to approve by attorney.

Is in for Johdy.

I got another piece of paper here.

I have to mark up here.

Sorry.

Hold on one second.

Nee James.

Um there's a mo.

I'm sorry, there's a motion to approve by attorney knee jam.

I'm sorry, Director.

No, I'm a I'm not an attorney.

Oh, did I call you attorney knee James?

Yes.

I'll be damned.

No, no.

No, we've known each other since we're six years old.

He's not an attorney knee.

I'm sorry about that.

I dig I dig swimming pools.

A motion to approve by Commissioner Nijm.

Uh and Commissioner Nijam, you might want to consider some reasons for that.

And I I was hoping you'd help me with that.

Well, I'll put some out there, and you wouldn't have to say if you like them or you don't like them.

Uh, but I would say that uh the plan of conservation and development encourages flexibility as the market changes, adding new life to existing buildings.

It will not have a detrimental effect on health safety and welfare of the neighborhood.

It is narrow enough to not sweep to other sites and properties throughout the city of Danbury CG20 zones.

It will not change the existing structure or appearance of the existing structure.

Does any of those sound good to you?

You want to strike any of them, or do you want to accept those?

Perfect.

Perfect.

Yes.

Does anybody want to make a second to that motion to approve with the reasons as stated?

I'll say second by Commissioner James.

Is that correct?

Yes.

Uh, is there anyone that feels as though they want to add more reasons to the approval?

And we'll see if the uh to the motion.

Okay.

A yes is yes to approve it, and a no is no.

Uh Commissioner Nijame.

Yes.

Commissioner James.

Yes.

Commissioner O'Neill.

Yeah.

Commissioner Bennett.

Yes.

Commissioner Hall.

Yes.

Commissioner Fuchs.

Yes.

Commissioner Botello.

No.

Uh Commissioner O'Laughlin.

Yes.

And I will vote.

Yes.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.

Eight to one.

The other way.

Uh, this petition is approved.

Thank you very much, everyone.

Thank you, and good luck to you.

Good luck with it.

Thank you for your time.

Good luck.

Thank you, guys.

And ladies, I apologize.

You better watch yourself.

I can't help it.

I'm sorry.

You'll be all over social media nowadays.

Never been on it, never will.

Thank you.

For me, anyway.

Uh, Commissioner members, there's nothing under new business.

Uh, there's nothing under correspondence.

There's nothing under for reference only.

Ms.

Reed, anything under anything you want to add?

Is anything new come in since this was typed up?

No.

Director, you have any final comments before I go to other matters.

Not to either I sent you guys a document just uh whenever I sent all of you a document just whenever you have time, look at it.

It's uh part of what we need to look at when we look at the zoning changes because of the new state uh requirements.

Got it.

Yeah, when you have a time, just look at it.

If anything jumps out at you, let me know.

You're also gonna let us know if there's any meetings on that coming up, anything like that.

Right now, there's no meetings scheduled.

We should have a workshop once I have time to talk to a cohortation council because the idea is to have what I send to you after you know advising it along with the mandate from the state, all done at once, and this should be done by July 1st.

Great.

Thank you.

You know what I'm just said.

We discussed it's the housing requirements and the middle housing, which is two units or nine units, has to be actually allowed in any commercial commercially zoned land, along with so many other changes that we have to adopt by July 1st.

And if we don't the city will not qualify for any funding from the state.

Thank you.

Commission members, anything else?

Uh commission, let me let me throw this out there under other matters.

Um tonight, in my opinion, was the right way to run a meeting.

Uh not run a meeting to conduct a meeting.

Everybody put their input in.

We had a good healthy debate.

There was some fantastic arguments on each side.

I thank the motion makers for both of them for making their motions with their reasons.

Um, and we had some great discussion.

If we could do that on every petition, um, I think it's good, it's healthy.

It's taking nine people, separate different people elected by the people to give their own opinions on things and to come up with a nice consensus that hopefully makes uh forgetting about making the meetings go easier, but to make Danbury better.

Um, attorney Beecher, I see that you're still on here.

That was an excellent presentation.

You brought up an awful lot of points to not only remind the existing commission members of our past actions, but to let the new members that haven't been here give them a little history um as to how this commission operates, what's in our mind and what's our historical data?

Uh and so that was great effort on your part, and thank you for that.

Because when the when an attorney can come up with a solid presentation, it helps us, it helps us to say yes and it helps us to say no.

Sometimes they don't always get their way.

Um, but it's very, very helpful to get all of the facts in front of us with exhibits, documents, and presentations.

So I'm full of thanks tonight.

Thank you.

Anything else?

Is there anything else and there are other matters?

Any other matters?

Any other matters?

Uh Commissioner Bennett, you had a comment?

No, no, no, I just said no, no, no, nothing else.

Okay, Commissioner Botella, you had your hand up.

I'm just gonna make a motion to adjourn if you're ready for it.

That's it.

Motion by Commissioner Botell to adjourn.

Is there a second?

Second by Commissioner Novis.

We got you in here on a second.

Good job.

Any discussion?

All those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye, aye.

Opposed.

We are adjourned at 8 37.

Thank you, everyone.

Good night.