Stamford developer wants to save historic Taylor Street home

STAMFORD — The 1890 house on Taylor Street is a glimpse into Stamford’s past.

Originally designed for two families, the Queen Anne-style house was one of a row built on the West Side to accommodate mostly Irish immigrants who worked as servants in nearby mansions, on the railroad or in local factories. The houses aren’t lavish, but they provided opportunity for new residents looking to make Stamford their home, influential preservationist Renee Kahn wrote in a May 1991 memo.

“Owning a home on Taylor Street was undoubtedly the first move up the social ladder in America,” Kahn wrote.

A proposal before the Stamford Zoning Board aims to preserve the 2.75-story house at 18 Taylor St., which has three rental apartments. The proposal also aims to fill in the property behind 18 Taylor with three new similar buildings — two of which would include four apartments and one of which would include five.

With an existing 1880 two-family house at 12 Taylor St. already renovated, the project before the Zoning Board would create a small enclave of five multifamily homes built to resemble the historic home, totaling 18 rental apartments.

The Zoning Board, fresh off a series of rejected developments, opened and closed discussions on the project at its Dec. 11 meeting. Board members appeared in favor of the proposal, and made plans to vote on it at their first meeting of the new year on Jan. 8.

Under the city’s zoning regulations, the property owner would be allowed to build 16 total units without board approval. But the additional two units resulted in a Zoning Board referral.

“I would like to request that we keep this at the head of the agenda for our next meeting, since we have delayed this ourselves a number of months because we were so busy with other things,” board member Rosanne McManus said.

At the meeting, attorney Lenny Braman represented the property owner, G&T Taylor Street LLC. State business records link the company to Goitom Bellete, managing partner at Stamford-based G&T Development.

Braman told The Advocate that Bellete’s proposal is good for the West Side in multiple ways. He highlighted historic preservation, new landscaping, a new drainage system, eliminating a curb cut on Taylor Street to enhance traffic safety and freeing up street parking spaces by building an accompanying lot for residents. 

“The neighbors that submitted letters in support and spoke at the hearing are testament to the fact that this is a project that’s going to improve the neighborhood (and) that it’s going to be welcome,” Braman said.

All three units in 18 Taylor St. are occupied. The residents would not be displaced during the renovation and construction of additional units, Braman said in an email.

“The existing tenants’ rent would be governed by their existing agreements with the owner,” Braman said.

Three people spoke during the project’s public hearing. Among them was Cynthia Bowser, a lifelong West Side resident who has previously voiced concerns about overcrowding and gentrification. The neighborhood is now majority low-income, Black and Hispanic families, according to city data, and about 60.8 percent of West Side households spend 30 percent or more of their income on housing.

“My only concern with the development is the additional vehicle traffic as it exits onto Mission Street. And also, parking is a problem on Taylor Street and Mission Street currently without additional units,” Bowser said, though adding that she “will say that (the development) will be welcomed.”

Of the 18 homes, two of them would be rented out at below market rate, in accordance with the city’s inclusionary zoning law known as BMR. Additionally, Braman said, the tenants at 12 Taylor St. use Section 8 vouchers to afford their rent.

Each unit would have a one-car garage. Along with an extra 10 parking spaces, the site would have a total of 23 spaces — not including street parking.

According to the application, the property owner would plan to paint the buildings “Newburyport Blue” and “Nantucket Grey,” in keeping with the historic buildings’ original color scheme.

The preservation work would include touching up distinctive parts of the house’s architecture, including its windows, veranda posts and trelliswork underneath its front porch.