Stamford will update its citywide master plan for the first time in more than a decade as officials look to account for changes and redevelopment across the downtown and the South End.
The city and its consultant team, led by Buckhurst Fish & Jacquemart Inc. of New York City, will hold the first of a series of public meetings May 14 from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the Ferguson Library.
The city”™s chief planner said the process would build off of ”“ rather than overhaul ”“ the 2002 master plan revision by focusing on areas that have experienced the most change in the past 11 years.
“I think of this master plan study as focused on the downtown and the South End,” said Norman F. Cole, land use bureau chief for the city of Stamford. “We”™re trying to look at the long-range development of the downtown as a really livable neighborhood, not just an office area.”
Cole estimated that more than 2,000 new housing units have been built in Stamford since the 2002 revision, with most of those coming in the downtown and South End.
“There”™s an awful lot of new housing going up and we have a new demographic of young people moving in,” Cole said. “We need to find out if we”™re now experiencing new kinds of market pressures and opportunities.”
Other specific items Cole hopes the planning team will address include the issue of traffic in the downtown versus the need for pedestrian walkways; a strategy for linking the city”™s parks, bike lanes and open spaces; the possible expansion of the Stamford Transportation Center to feature additional commercial and/or residential developments; and the urban transitway that runs east from Atlantic Street to Elm Street and then to East Main Street.
Cole said it”™s important for the plan to focus on the city as a whole and not just the contentious development issues of the day. He cited the planned construction of an 850,000-square-foot headquarters by Bridgewater Associates L.P. in the South End as an example.
“With all the distraction that”™ll be going on with some of these other major development issues, it”™ll be a challenge,” Cole said. “I do want to hear from the citizenry because it”™s one thing to imagine how they”™re reacting to this and it”™s another thing to actually hear it.”
Frank Fish, a principal for Buckhurst Fish, which does business as BFJ Planning, reinforced Cole”™s message that the process wouldn”™t harm areas like the city”™s northern suburbs.
“There are areas where we don”™t expect any change and where we don”™t think any is necessary,” Fish said, describing northern Stamford as a “beautiful, stable residential neighborhood.”
BFJ Planning has worked extensively in Connecticut, shepherding Bridgeport, Danbury, Hartford, Norwalk and Stratford through similar planning processes as well as advising Blackrock Realty L.L.C. on its plans for the Fairfield Metro Center train station.
In addition to the focal points mentioned by Cole, Fish said the year-long master plan revision process would examine infrastructure and policies with an eye on protecting the city against hurricanes and other major weather events.
“I think the plan itself has to be around our general policies: growth policies, preservation policies and plans for the next hurricane ”“ things like that,” Fish said. “We”™ll look at Stamford from a regional perspective too.
“Stamford has grown from what I”™d call a small, fairly local city ”“ maybe like a Danbury or even Waterbury ”“ into a fairly significant regional center that I think many in the real estate community see as a major corporate center with ties to New York City and Connecticut by rail and highway.”
