The L.O. District: You're Entering a No Retail Zone

A red and white sign near the U.S. Post Office on Monroe Turnpike advertises nearly three acres of undeveloped land available for lease. Louis Regina of 111 Monroe LLC owns the parcel and has received inquiries for retail uses — but has had to reluctantly decline all offers.

Though the property is located diagonally across from pharmacy and is on one of the town's main commercial arteries, it is in a Limited Office District, a small stretch of Route 111 that extends to the Trumbull border where retail uses are not permitted.

"The L.O. District was designed to protect the character of the residential neighborhoods that surround it," Monroe Town Planner David Killeen said of the zone's original intent.

According to the Town Plan of Conservation & Development (POCD), the permitted uses in an L.O. Zone are business and professional offices, medical and dental offices, laboratories and research offices and municipal buildings. "The maximum allowable height and coverage is less than the DB (Design Business) districts (30 feet/two stories maximum height and 20 percent building coverage respectively)."

Regina, a longtime developer and a Monroe resident, had filed a zoning application to ammend the L.O. Zone regulation to allow some retail and restaurant uses in the district, which accounts for only one-half of one percent of Monroe's land area.

At a hearing on the application last Thursday, P&Z Commission Chairman Richard Zini said there was consensus among commissioners updating the POCD that the L.O. Zone had out-lived its usefulness.

"We're talking about Band-Aiding a zone that doesn't work," Zini said. "To limit retail in that section of town doesn't make sense to me. It's already a commercial district. Sure some residential properties are snuggled in, but it's not a residential area anymore."

The commission seemed to be open to discussions on creating an overlay zone (which would allow certain uses on L.O. properties of different sizes). Part of the L.O. District is where Route 111 has four lanes, which is eventually reduced to two lanes. David Quatrella, an attorney hired by Regina, suggested that more intensive retail uses could be allowed where the highway is four lanes.

Zini said the commission also has the option of rezoning the area altogether.

Killeen said retail attracts eight-to-nine times more traffic than office uses, among numerous issues the commission must consider before allowing any changes to the L.O.

Patrick O'Hara, the vice chairman on the P&Z, said he has concerns for residential property owners living behind the sites that could be developed when it comes to buffers, noise and lighting. He also wants to limit curb cuts along Monroe Turnpike, where vehicles would be entering and turning off of the roadway, so it is safer.

However, some commissioners discussed how private property owners coming to agreements to share driveways on their properties could pose challenges. Killeen said zoning could include incentives that encourage sharing curb cuts.

During a public comment portion of the hearing, Mark Antinozzi, former chairman of the Architectural Review Board, noted how each property having its own driveway could lead to strip malls.

"We were always concerned with Monroe becoming a community of stip malls," Antinozzi said of his time on the ARB.

He said that section of Route 111 is a gateway to Monroe, which already has enough pizza parlors, tattoo parlors, nail salons and Chinese restaurants.

Zini told the applicant, "I think the commission has to have its own meeting and discuss this without wasting your time and money and come to a consensus.

Quatrella agreed to withdraw the zone amendment application.

Zini said the L.O. Zone will be on a P&Z meeting agenda next month and asked Lee Hossler, the Monroe Economic Development Commission chairman who was in attendance, if the EDC could get data on developers' inquiries for Route 111. Hossler said it could.

"We can get a sense of what people are looking to put on Route 111," Zini said.