Developer Vincent Cuminotto is asking the commission to change the zone of the 13.6-acre lot at 1 Ivy Brook Road from light industrial to a Planned Development District — the first step in a land-use process that would allow him to build the medical facility, as well as a second 60,000-square-foot office building. The project would also require site-plan approval of the zoning board.

Working with Cuminotto on the development is Dr. Mark Aferzon, an ear, nose and throat specialist, and his wife, Lana Aferzon.

There are about 20 percent fewer doctors here than are needed, and as the area continues to grow that percentage will only increase, Griffin Hospital President Patrick Charmel told the commission.

"There is a deficit of physicians practicing in the Valley," he said. "We can expect more will be moving here, but one problem is finding office space."

There also are many doctors at Griffin   Hospital interested in expanding their practices, Charmel said. "Many are in spaces that are considered less than optimal," he said, "and to grow their practices, they need to move out."

Aferzon plans to move his practice to the new building, Lana Aferzon told the commission. "In Shelton, you don't have a primary medical facility that is near Griffin Hospital and right off the highway," she said. The Ivy Brook Road location, off exit 13 of Route 8, makes it especially easy for doctors to go back and forth to the hospital, she said. 

The proposed building would house up to a dozen practices, which could bring a number of different specialties under one roof, she said.  "That gives patients the opportunity to come to one place," she said.