Another battle over building is happening in Connecticut’s fastest-growing city.

Stamford planners could get an earful Tuesday evening about a new 10-year plan. Some residents believe it could leave their neighborhoods overcrowded.

Lyle Fishell loves The Cove so much, he’s lived there for 65 years.

“I’m living in the house that I grew up in,” he said. “We have opportunities here that are fantastic.”

It’s a neighborhood of single-family homes, but residents worry that it could be overdeveloped – if Stamford adopts a proposed 2035 Comprehensive Plan. It designates most of The Cove as an “RES2 Residential Neighborhood,” which are “residential areas that currently provide a diversity of housing options and should continue to do so in the future, from single-family dwellings and townhomes to duplexes or triplexes.”

Fishell thinks it could change his lifelong home permanently.

"We already have traffic nightmares getting across town or even downtown,” he said. “They haven't come up with how to resolve the parking. They haven’t come up with how to resolve the traffic that this will bring to all the neighborhoods.”

State law requires cities to craft a new comprehensive plan every decade.

After residents complained, Mayor Caroline Simmons asked planners to change the Comprehensive Plan, making clear that multi-family buildings should go in areas where they already exist.

“It’s a road map,” the mayor said. “It’s a planning document.”

Simmons said the Comprehensive Plan is not a zoning change.

“This is not a legally-binding plan. It is not a zoning change. It is a comprehensive plan that really creates a road map and set the guiding principles for our city for the next 10 years,” she said. “We want that we preserve that blend, while also supporting our strategic growth and housing opportunities in the areas of our city where it makes sense.”

But in The Cove, the changes only removed a few blocks from the RE2 land use category. Fishell thinks it’s an invitation to future zoning changes.

“The new master plan, we’ll call it, will guide the zoning officials to allow more of these in more of these single-family neighborhoods,” he said.

Stamford residents have two chances to sound-off on the revised 2035 Comprehensive Plan.

On Tuesday at 6:30 p.m., the city Planning Board is holding a virtual public hearing. Click HERE to join.

People can also speak at an in-person hearing next Tuesday, Sept. 16. It’s at 6:30 p.m. at the Stamford Government Center, fourth-floor cafeteria.