Oppose the 96-Unit Development at 4480 Black Rock Turnpike

The Fairfield Initiative for Town Sustainability (FITS) needs your help to raise $25,000 to appeal a development that threatens to overwhelm our already-strained infrastructure. Two six-story buildings with 96 units are set to add a substantial volume of daily traffic onto Black Rock Turnpike at the Merritt Parkway intersection — an area already plagued by gridlock and documented crashes.

While the developer's commissioned traffic study claims traffic will be unaffected, anyone who drives Black Rock Turnpike knows better. Each new oversized development chips away at Fairfield's historic character, transforming our suburban roads into urban arteries.

The traffic impact extends beyond daily inconvenience to critical public safety concerns. Emergency vehicles face the same gridlock as residents. This becomes even more alarming given the project's serious fire safety deficiencies:

• Emergency Response Risk: Fairfield Fire Department has stated they lack sufficient resources to handle a major fire at this location while maintaining emergency response elsewhere — particularly hazardous in an area without fire hydrants and numerous wood-frame homes.

While the builders have given the development its own hydrant, the hydrant nearest to the surrounding community is 1,800 feet away. It would take 12 firefighters just for hose deployment — before any firefighting can begin. Fairfield's only aerial ladder truck is stationed 11 minutes away, well beyond the 8-minute emergency response standard. Our Fire Department currently can't meet OSHA's minimum safety protocols for emergency response, and they can reach only 28.1% of Fairfield roads within standard response times.

• Pedestrian Safety: The location lacks both sidewalks and public transit access, forcing residents onto a high-traffic state turnpike with no safe walking routes — a particular burden on those seeking affordable housing. The people these units are supposed to reach can't take an Uber every time they need groceries.

• Environmental Impact: The project borders protected wetlands, yet 8-30g provisions have provided the builder with a loophole, threatening the natural resources that make Fairfield special.

Beyond Safety: The Cost to Our Community

While the public safety concerns are paramount, this fight is also about preserving Fairfield's unique identity. Fairfield is a large town, not a small city. We chose it for its intimate scale, its tree-lined streets, its sense of history. Every day, we see these qualities under increasing strain from oversized developments that seem dropped from the sky, with no awareness of where they land.

These developments threaten our walkable neighborhoods, our sense of community, our connection to nature. Every day, we see the strain on resources increasing — more traffic, stretched emergency services, diminishing quiet spaces. The development's windows will flood our wooded neighborhoods with artificial light, disrupting wildlife patterns and residents' health. Research links such nighttime light exposure to increased risks of sleep disorders, depression, and other health issues.

The project also requires excavating 40,000 cubic yards of soil — that's at least 2,000 trips by hulking dump trucks through our neighborhoods. While they are doing it, developers have promised to move any box turtles they find, a vulnerable species that is not supposed to be moved.

Affordable housing in Connecticut is crucial. But after decades of 8-30g on the books, homelessness in Connecticut has increased. Upward mobility has not. Instead, developers, the business community and those politicians who want an increased tax base at any cost use this law to justify overdevelopments that primarily boost builder profits.

But what about disadvantaged families? The "affordable" units in these monstrosities remain out of reach for the most needy. The label is a sham: "less unaffordable" is more like it.

In short, the law isn't truly working for anyone but the developers. It's lose-lose. And the most recent attempt to reform 8-30g failed.

We're FITS because we want housing that benefits the truly needy. We want to balance that need with the livability that made Fairfield a town to love in the first place. We want development that FITS!

What Your $25,000 Goal Will Fund:

• Legal representation: Specialized land-use attorneys to challenge the approval based on public safety grounds

• Expert testimony: Independent fire safety experts, traffic engineers, and environmental specialists who can document the real risks

• Critical studies: Professional analysis of emergency response times, traffic patterns, and environmental impact — to counter the developer's commissioned reports

• Appeal filing costs: Court fees, document preparation, and related administrative expenses

Every dollar strengthens our case.

This appeal at 4480 Black Rock Turnpike stands alongside other community efforts to ensure responsible development in Fairfield, including the fights over similar projects at 4221 Black Rock Turnpike and 1477 Congress Street.

So your contribution defends more than one development site; it fuels a movement to protect Fairfield: its people, its character, its wildlife and environment. The damage, once inflicted, cannot be undone.

Please donate today and share this campaign with other neighbors who love our town.