The developer behind 122 Wilton Road, Westport’s first fully affordable apartment building, has filed a second application in town. Garden Homes Fund is proposing 18 affordable homes at 96 Compo Road North, in a single-family residential zone, the Westport Journal and 06880 reported on Oct. 5.
The application went to the Planning and Zoning Commission last week, according to the Journal. It relies on Connecticut’s 8-30g affordable housing statute, which limits how a town like Westport can turn down a development that sets aside a large share of its homes as affordable.
What is proposed
Richard Freedman, who heads Garden Homes Fund, told the Journal that the plan calls for nine one-story duplexes with two bedrooms in each unit, open to people of all ages, including families with children. The application itself says the homes would “provide housing in Westport for low and moderate income families with school-aged children,” 06880 reported.
All 18 units would be affordable. The statute requires only 30 percent of the units in a qualifying development to meet its affordability rules.
Freedman said the low profile was deliberate, and that the buildings would be “considerably shorter” than neighboring homes. “I did make a conscious decision to keep the heights of the buildings down,” he told the Journal.
The site sits between Brookside Drive and the Town Farm tennis courts and Little League fields, across the road from Tamarac Road and Gorham Avenue, according to 06880. Freedman said it was chosen because it is flat and has public water and sewer. The unoccupied house on the lot had been damaged by flooding, he said, and was sold, and priced, as a house to be torn down.
The application provides 24 parking spaces and limits residents to one car per unit, “strictly enforced as a condition of the lease,” 06880 reported. The homes would be built by Eagle River, a Pennsylvania maker of manufactured and modular homes, according to 06880. The fund would develop the property and then sell it “to an area housing non-profit at below cost on completion.”
The Wilton Road precedent
Garden Homes Fund is the charitable arm of Stamford-based Garden Homes Management, founded by Freedman’s father. Its 19 apartments at 122 Wilton Road, at the corner of Kings Highway North, were built after two denials and a court challenge, the Journal reported. The building was sold below cost to Homes with Hope, which has owned and managed it for the past two years. 06880 noted that Homes with Hope is not affiliated with the new project.
Freedman told the Journal that Homes with Hope received hundreds of applications for the 19 Wilton Road apartments. Income limits there range from $60,000 for a one-person household to $99,400 for a six-person household, and rents run from $1,579 a month for a one-bedroom to $2,084 for a three-bedroom, according to the apartments’ website as cited by the Journal.
“I’ve had resistance every time I’ve tried to build a project like this,” Freedman said. “Hopefully, people will see what I’ve done in Westport.”
Compo Road North would be the foundation’s fifth 8-30g project. A proposal in New Canaan was recently denied and is now on appeal, the Journal reported. Freedman’s “most optimistic” estimate is completion within two years of approval and permits.
What the points mean
Westport counted 424 affordable units in June 2025, about 4 percent of its housing, well short of the 10 percent that would exempt it from the statute’s appeal procedure. The town’s last 8-30g moratorium ended in March 2023, and it is collecting points toward another, as our coverage of the offsite units vote explains. The Compo Road North homes would count for 14 of those points, according to 06880.
The proposal joins the much larger plan for 250 units on Greens Farms Road on the commission’s list. The commission canceled its Oct. 5 public hearing on athletic field lights because not all members could attend, 06880 reported, and its next meeting is scheduled for Oct. 19. No hearing has been scheduled yet for Compo Road North.
Sources
- Westport Journal, 18-unit affordable housing development proposed on Compo Road N, Oct. 5, 2026
- 06880, Newest 8-30g, 18 units on Compo Road North, Oct. 5, 2026
- 06880, Tonight, P&Z meeting canceled, Oct. 5, 2026
- 06880, 8-30g, P&Z and more. Affordable housing 101, June 30, 2025
