An application to develop age-restricted housing on the former Briarwood College campus in Southington was withdrawn last week.
PGX Holdings LLC had filed an application in February with the Southington Planning and Zoning Commission seeking to change a zoning district boundary from R-40 to ARCHZ, an age-restricted cluster housing zone. The applicant intended to redevelop the 32.75-acre property at 2279 Mount Vernon Road into an over-55 residential community with 150 units.
The application was the subject of a public hearing that began on March 4 and was continued twice, first to March 18 and then to May 6.
The application is on the agenda for Tuesday’s hearing, with the word “withdrawn” immediately following it.
Documents posted online for the public hearing include an email sent April 30 on behalf of the applicant by Sev Bovino, a civil engineer with Kratzert, Jones & Associates Inc. in the Milldale section of Southington, to Assistant Town Planner David Lavallee. The email states in part, “On behalf of my client, I hereby withdraw the variance and the zone change application.”
The email does not state a reason for the decision, and Lavallee said via an email to Hartford Business Journal that he is not aware of the reason for the withdrawal.
In a telephone interview, Bovino said he doesn’t know the “exact reason” the developers withdrew the application, but believes it is related to a disagreement over the interpretation of zoning regulations.
Bovino claims the applicants were told they needed to get a variance for the project, but first needed to convert the property from the R-40 Zone to ARCHZ, which allows for age-restricted housing.
“So, we made the application, we went in front of the board, and the comment was made that that zone does not allow renting of units,” Bovino said. “This property owner does not want to sell each individual unit; they want to own it all, they want to manage it and they want to rent it.”
Because of the disagreement, the applicant sought a legal opinion on what the zone allows and provided that opinion to town officials, he said.
“So, we were waiting for the town to respond, and I was not part of the conversation between attorneys so I don’t know what transpired, but the client called me and said please withdraw the application,” Bovino said.
The property at 2279 Mount Vernon Road was known as Briarwood College from 1966 through early 2010. It later became Lincoln College of New England, which moved out of the property in 2018 and shut down in 2019.
PGX Holdings purchased the property in May 2021 for $3.5 million from Briarwood Real Estate Limited. The property was later listed for sale in May 2022 for $6.9 million, but it never sold.
PGX is controlled by Moises Grunblatt, who lists a New Haven business address, and Carlyle Equities LLC, state records show.
According to the application, the existing seven buildings on the property would be converted into 150 studio and one-bedroom apartments that would be restricted to tenants aged 55 and over. The units would range in size from 350 square feet to 1,000 square feet.
The developers had said they also planned to incorporate a small percentage of affordable “workforce housing units,” but did not say how many units that would include.
In addition to seeking the zone change, the developers also filed an application with the Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA) seeking a variance to allow for the use of existing structures for the over-55 community; to have more than two attached units; to allow for 100% of the units to be attached; to allow for increasing the number of units per acre to 5 from 3.5; and to allow the units to be rentals.
The application has been continued twice by the ZBA and is now expected to also be withdrawn.
