The Planning and Zoning Commission voted 6-0 on Sept. 15 to eliminate the Saugatuck Marina zone, the district Westport created in 2022 to make room for the Hamlet at Saugatuck. In the same session the commission approved a map amendment that moves 14 Saugatuck Center properties into a GBD/Saugatuck designation, lowers the minimum lot size to just over 3,000 square feet and removes a cap that had limited the area to two developments.
“This is what we all clamored for. Here it is,” Paul Lebowitz, the commission’s chair, said after the vote, according to the Westport Journal.
The two measures, Text Amendment 877 and Map Amendment 878, formally end the Hamlet’s zoning. The harder question is what replaces it. Most of the old Hamlet land now belongs to a Norwalk developer whose apartment plan has changed shape several times since spring, and the commissioners who will judge it have said openly that they are unsure the numbers work.
How the Hamlet failed
ROAN Ventures pitched the Hamlet as a mixed-use village with 57 hotel rooms, 57 residences and 258 parking spaces across 3.38 acres, according to the Hartford Business Journal. Commissioners denied it on July 28, 2025, by a vote of 4-0 with three abstentions.
The reasons they gave were specific. The plan did not meet the 2022 Saugatuck zoning text. The Architectural Review Board had disapproved the design, and commissioners found it out of step with the “New England Vernacular Village” character the regulations called for. Parking and loading did not work. Public waterfront access came to 19 percent of the site against a 25 percent requirement.
Neil Cohn, one of the three commissioners who abstained, warned that the town was making a mistake.
I cannot be in the majority tonight. We’re doing a real disservice to our town.
Neil Cohn, Planning and Zoning commissioner, July 28, 2025, as reported by 06880
Within days ROAN said it would pursue an affordable housing development of 400 to 500 units under Connecticut’s 8-30g statute, which limits a town’s ability to reject projects with a large share of deed-restricted units. It sued the town in Superior Court in Bridgeport on Aug. 6, 2025. Lebowitz responded that “the threat of an affordable housing application as a ‘second choice’ should never be a bargaining chip for future applications.”
No 8-30g plan was ever filed. ROAN’s attorney withdrew the lawsuit on Feb. 5, 2026, and Judge Dale W. Ratcliffe approved the withdrawal six days later.
Spinnaker buys in
On March 13, Spinnaker Real Estate Partners bought two of ROAN’s parcels for a combined $16,045,000. The larger, 606 Riverside Avenue, covers 1.5 acres and currently holds a dry cleaner, an auto shop and a locksmith. It sold for $12,795,000. The smaller, 96 Franklin Street, is a 60-space parking lot on 0.37 acres. It sold for $3,250,000.
Together the parcels make up more than half of the 3.4-acre Hamlet assemblage. ROAN kept roughly 1.53 acres. The Westport Alliance for Saugatuck, a neighborhood group, said Spinnaker “will not pursue a development under the state affordable housing law 8-30G.”
A plan that keeps moving
Spinnaker’s proposal has changed repeatedly, and the public accounts of it do not always agree.
An early filing described 157 apartments with 18 affordable units and 283 parking spaces, according to the Hartford Business Journal. By late July the Westport Journal reported a revision from 175 units down to 165 on about 1.54 acres, less than the 1.87 acres Spinnaker bought, with 10 percent of the units affordable. In August, 06880 described two scenarios, one with 158 units including 26 priced for households at 80 percent of area median income, the other with 140 units. A day later the Westport Journal reported 165 units with 16 percent affordable. Published descriptions of the building’s height have also differed from one account to the next. The formal application, when it comes, will settle those figures.
The sticking point is affordability. Westport ordinarily asks for 20 percent of units in such projects to be affordable. Matthew Edvardsen, Spinnaker’s owner, told commissioners that no other town in the state imposes that requirement on comparable residential projects, the Westport Journal reported. Without a state brownfield grant, the plan’s affordable units would be mostly one-bedrooms, according to the same reporting.
The commissioners were not convinced.
I don’t know if this adds up for me. We are faced with the 8-30g reality.
Breanne Injeski, Planning and Zoning commissioner, August 2026, as reported by the Westport Journal
“We are in limbo,” Commissioner Craig Schiavone said. Lebowitz struck a warmer note in August, telling the Spinnaker team, “I like the direction that you guys are heading,” according to 06880.
What the new zoning does
The Saugatuck Marina zone was drawn around one project. Its replacement is drawn around a neighborhood. Folding the 14 properties into GBD/Saugatuck, cutting the minimum lot to roughly 3,000 square feet and dropping the two-development cap opens Saugatuck Center to smaller, parcel-by-parcel proposals instead of a single master plan.
That matters to owners of the 14 rezoned properties, who can now plan for their own lots rather than around a single project. It also matters to anyone shopping for a house within walking distance of the Westport train station, where new construction is now more likely to come in smaller pieces.
The open questions
Three decisions outside the zoning map will shape Saugatuck’s next phase. The state’s preferred plan to replace the Cribari Bridge, beside Saugatuck Center, is under review, with construction no earlier than 2030. A new Plan of Conservation and Development is due in October 2027. And on Sept. 16 two committees of the Representative Town Meeting advised against joining the new Connecticut Municipal Development Agency, a state agency.
“Saugatuck is happening to us no matter what,” RTM member Kristin Purcell said during that debate, according to the Westport Journal.
Sources
- Westport Journal, P&Z eliminates Saugatuck Marina zone, Sept. 15, 2026
- 06880, Hamlet. To be, or not to be, July 29, 2025
- Hartford Business Journal, Westport zoning officials deny proposed mixed-use Hamlet at Saugatuck development, undated
- Patch, Developer plans affordable housing complex in Westport after Hamlet denial, Aug. 8, 2025
- Westport Journal, Hamlet is not to be after ROAN withdraws lawsuit, Feb. 16, 2026
- Westport Journal, Spinnaker buys more than half of former Hamlet site, March 27, 2026
- Hartford Business Journal, Prominent developer proposes 157-unit apartment project in Westport, undated
- Westport Journal, Spinnaker team discusses latest revisions to Saugatuck plan, July 29, 2026
- 06880, P&Z says Spinnaker’s Saugatuck project heading in right direction, Aug. 18, 2026
- Westport Journal, P&Z remains skeptical of Spinnaker’s affordable housing math, Aug. 19, 2026
- Westport Journal, RTM committees advise against joining development agency, Sept. 16, 2026
