Images courtesy of Niles Bolton Associates

A Farmington-based developer is proposing to build a garden-style apartment complex in Tolland under the state’s 8-30g affordable housing law.

The project from Metro Realty Management Corp. would bring 71 apartments to a wooded site about a mile from Interstate 84 and a grocery-anchored, mixed-use development, and a little over a mile and a half from the town center.

The 8-30g law allows housing developers to override local zoning if a project has a sufficient share of affordable housing.

Plans show 33 one-bedroom apartments and 38 two-bedroom apartments in six 2-story buildings at 312 Merrow Road. Unit sizes indicated in filings range from 800 to 930 square feet for the one-bedroom apartments and 1,070 to 1,280 square feet for the two-bedroom ones.

Amenities will include 120 parking spaces on-site, in-unit washers and dryers and walking paths on the 31-acre property. The application states 18 acres of the property will become subject to a conservation easement if the project is approved.

Metro Realty’s filings say the firm hopes to use Low Income Housing Tax Credits to finance the project, thus 20 percent of the units will be rented at market rates, while the remaining units will be preserved for households earning between 30 percent and 80 percent of the area median income.0

“As such, the proposed community will (1) address Tolland’s need for affordable housing, as detailed in the Affordable Housing Need Memorandum, submitted separately as part of this application; and (2) assist the town in meeting its affordable housing goals, as expressed in its 2019 Plan of Conservation and Development, which highlights how ‘[h]ousing affordability and the lack of affordable housing is perhaps the greatest housing issue facing Tolland,'” a letter from project attorney Andrea L. Gomes, of the law firm Hinckley Allen, states.