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An architect’s rendering of the eastern property on the former B&S Carting site. Developer Building and Land Technology will build 714 apartments across its two properties between Woodland Avenue and Walter Wheeler Drive thanks to a recent State Supreme Coourt decision.

A view of the former B&S Carting site between Walter Wheeler Drive and Woodlawn Avenue in Stamford, Conn., on Thursday July 22, 2021. Developer Building and Land Technology wants to put more apartments on, but residents have fought tooth and nail to discourage the development.

STAMFORD — After Connecticut’s Supreme Court ruled in its favor, Stamford developer Building and Land Technology is moving forward with rebuilding more of the South End.

Harbor Point’s developer plans immediately “to move foward and begin work on” building more than 700 new apartments on the former B&S Carting, according to BLT spokesman Rob Blanchard.

“The site, a former trash hauling facility, which has unfortunately remained a vacant brownfield in the center of the South End neighborhood, can finally be reincorporated into the fabric of the community,” Blanchard said in a statement.

Even though a development plan for the buildings cleared the city zoning board in 2020, its future was tied up in the court system after a group of South End residents in 2019 filed a petition pushing back on a Planning Board change allowing denser development in the area.

However, the State Supreme Court this month cleared the way for BLT to build 714 units across the two parcels it owns between Woodland Avenue and Walter Wheeler Drive. After years of legal acrimony between Stamford’s Board of Representatives and the developer, the justices upheld a lower court decision that essentially voids the resident petition.

The new apartments will be split unevenly between BLT’s two lots on the site. The western half, which is about three acres, will house 174 apartments and include 218 parking spaces, according to the 2020 application. Application materials from the time show the finished building ranging from four to six stories, with the highest points closest to the center of the property.

The larger, eastern half of the property is planned for buildings ranging from seven to 25 stories, making it home to one of the tallest buildings in Harbor Point. Across roughly four acres, the developer plans to build 540 apartments and 690 parking spaces. BLT will place all its city-mandated affordable housing on this property, adding 54 homes to the local stock of below market-rate units.

Despite its approval, the plan for the B&S Carting site drew mixed emotions during the public hearing process. While BLT pointed to the municipal benefits that an updated B&S Carting site would bring, some longtime South End residents shuddered publicly at the prospect of BLT building densely on another site in the South End. Despite BLT’s promise to include robust roadway infrastructure for the neighborhood and millions of dollars in revenue for the city, South End stalwarts asked for a lower-rise approach to developing the site, since it abuts more traditional residential streets.

Just as residents have consistently argued for lower-density development on the site, BLT has consistently argued that it was impossible. Because the B&S Carting site contains contaminated soil, “the costs of remediation and municipal infrastructure upgrades that come with this project are substantial,” said company co-president Ted Ferrarone in a 2020 statement to The Stamford Advocate.

BLT declined to provide an exact timeline on when the environmental remediation and construction work would begin.

Verónica Del Valle is a reporter covering growth and development for the Stamford Advocate and economic mobility for Hearst Connecticut Media Group. Verónica graduated in 2020 from American University, where she earned both her bachelors and masters degrees. Her work has appeared in NPR and The Washington Post.