It's back.
An application has been filed for the site at 55 West Woods Road that in the past had been earmarked for a hotel and then townhouse apartments.
Now developers want to build 50 apartments on the property in northern Hamden off Whitney Avenue in the shadow of Sleeping Giant.
The developers, West Woods Properties, had won permission to build a hotel on the six-acre property but never moved forward with those plans, citing the poor economy as the major reason.
Its latest application about a year ago had been for 26 townhouses, but they were unable to get the needed variances from the Zoning Board of Appeals to move forward with those plans. At that time, company representatives said they would consider coming back either with the hotel plans or perhaps with an affordable housing development.
It wasn't clear Tuesday if any or all of the 50 proposed apartments would be done under the state's Affordable Housing guidelines, which make it more difficult for a municipality to fight them in court.
Members of the West Woods Neighborhood Association had opposed the townhouses because of fears that Quinnipiac Univerity students could have ended up living in them.
But that could be who ends up renting the 50 apartments as well, since students would likely fall under the state's affordable housing guidelines.
The Inland Wetlands Commission will first take up the application, and the Planning and Zoning Commission legally can't act on it until IWC does. Since both commissions have no meetings scheduled in August, it's not likely anything will take place on the application until September.
