Westport’s Planning and Zoning Commission voted 4-3 in April to reject Text Amendment 864, which would have allowed developers to satisfy their affordable housing requirement by building the units offsite, the Westport Journal reported.
The proposal was tied to two projects, the Gables at 785 Post Road East and special-needs units at 3 George Street.
The commission’s chair, Paul Lebowitz, was on the losing side, and said so. The idea that offsite housing is “somehow verboten,” he said, “should be taken out back and eliminated from our lexicon.”
Why it matters
Westport counted 424 affordable units in June 2025, about 4 percent of its housing stock, far below the 10 percent that would exempt it from the state’s 8-30g statute, which limits how towns can reject developments with a large affordable set-aside. The town held a moratorium on such applications from March 2019 to March 2023 and is collecting points toward another.
Every unit counts toward that moratorium. In May 2025 the town lost 40.5 points, about a fifth of what it needs, when a plan for 32 affordable apartments at 6 Maple Avenue South was dropped. The vote leaves the onsite requirement in place.
The affordability debate has followed nearly every large application this year, including the apartment plan for the former Hamlet site, where commissioners questioned the affordable share, and the Fitzgerald on Greens Farms Road, which proposes 75 affordable units among 250.
Our vote tracker collects the commission’s major votes, with names.
Sources
- Westport Journal, P&Z votes down offsite affordable housing idea, 4-3, April 7, 2026
- 06880, Affordable apartment plan dropped, moratorium points lost, May 2, 2025
- 06880, 8-30g, P&Z and more. Affordable housing 101, June 30, 2025
