Date: Fri 04-Sep-1998

Publication: Bee

Author: ANDYG

Quick Words:

P&Z-suit-Memoli-Abby-Ridge

Full Text:

P&Z Sued Over Subdivision Rejection

BY ANDREW GOROSKO

The applicants for Abbey Ridge, a proposed eight-lot residential subdivision

off South Main Street, have sued the Planning and Zoning Commission (P&Z) over

its second rejection of the construction proposal.

In a lawsuit filed August 28 in Danbury Superior Court, applicants Angelo C.

Memoli of Trumbull and Gene A. Memoli of Bridgeport seek to have a judge

direct the P&Z to approve the subdivision which it rejected August 6 and last

December.

Attorney Robert Hall represents the Memolis. The town has a September 15 court

date to answer allegations raised in the suit.

The 20-acre parcel is a steep, rugged site east of South Main Street and south

of Botsford Hill Road, near the Monroe town line.

In the lawsuit, Mr Hall points out that when the initial application was

rejected last December, P&Z members gave as reasons for their denial that the

applicant proposed donating less than the minimum required 10 percent of land

area in the proposed 20-acre subdivision as open space, and that the grade of

a driveway exceeded 15 percent, which is the maximum allowable driveway grade.

In that initial rejection, no reference was made to the total amount of earth

to be removed from the site as "excessive," or that too few trees would be

preserved in the front yards of the proposed lots, the suit adds. Those were

some of the reasons stated by the P&Z in its second rejection.

"No change in the proposed subdivision road and grading plans had been made

between the first application and the second application with regard to the

design features found objectionable by the commission on August 6, 1998," the

suit states.

The P&Z's interpretation of the town sand and gravel regulations as including

earth removal in connection with subdivision road construction is an

"incorrect" interpretation of town land use regulations, according to the

lawsuit.

The suit alleges that the P&Z is not authorized to regulate sand and gravel

removal under the provisions of state law concerning the functions of planning

commissions and zoning commissions.

The sand and gravel regulations are too vague and set no standards which the

applicants can use to design a subdivision road, the suit claims.

The P&Z's rejection of the Abbey Ridge application is significant because it

is the first time the P&Z has applied its revised earth removal rules in

deciding on a residential subdivision application.

According to the P&Z, seven of the proposed eight lots would have more than

200 cubic yards of earth materials removed from them, in violation of the

P&Z's maximum allowable earth removal for a building lot; grading on the site

would be too extensive under the terms of the land use regulations, involving

the removal of 22,088 cubic yards of material; and few trees would remain in

the front sections of the building lots, among other objections.

In March 1997, P&Z members revised their regulations, strictly limiting how

much earth material can be removed from house lots when subdivisions are

built. Those regulatory changes stemmed from the extensive amount of earth

material which was removed by developers of the Whispering Pines subdivision

in Sandy Hook which radically recontoured the landscape. Whispering Pines has

been renamed Miya Lane.

One reason the rules were changed was to encourage developers to work with the

contours of the land, not work against the landscape, P&Z members have

explained.

At a public hearing last November, residents living near the Abbey Ridge site

voiced fears that the blasting needed to build there would damage their

properties. They also said the project would worsen traffic safety in an

already hazardous area.