Revitalizing Downtown Danbury a Long Haul

Reviving downtown Danbury won't be as easy as waving a wand, but it doesn't sound impossible either, members of the Main Street Renaissance Task Force heard Thursday.

The goal is to bring together essentially everyone with a single purpose, make the city's Main Street corridor the center of City Life and a place where people want to be. That won't be the effort of any one person, said City Planner Dennis Elpern.

It will involve the city taking care of its property, it will involve private land owners taking care of their property, it will involve the city making zoning changes to spur appropriate development, it will involve reducing fees, it will include creating a small business incubator and it will involve encouraging appropriate architectural decisions downtown.

"Many other cities have worked on similar projects and what they haven't done is said how to get there," Elpern said. He said Bridgeport set a goal of attracting more young people downtown, but never revealed how to do it.

Danbury has changed some zoning regulations and reduced some fees to spur development downtown, Elpern said. The zoning changes made it easier to win approval for multifamily homes downtown, and they eased some parking requirements. The city also instituted a "Top of the Pile" system for developments in the Main Street redevelopment zone. A proposal made in that area can expect a faster review than one made elsewhere in the city, because that application will automatically go to the top of the pile.