Town Seeks Exemption From Zoning Regulations

By Andrew Gorosko

Planning and Zoning Commission (P&Z) members are considering making zoning rule changes that would allow the town to move excess topsoil from the 5/6 school construction site at Fairfield Hills to Newtown High School.

That topsoil would be used for the reconstruction of high school athletic fields.

The zoning regulations now prohibit the transfer of topsoil from one site to another, except in connection with the construction of artificial ponds.

Under the proposed zoning rule change, the town would be allowed to move excess topsoil from one municipal site to another municipal site. Such work would require that plans be submitted to P&Z detailing the nature of the project. The proposed rule revisions would keep in force the prohibition against moving topsoil from one privately-owned site to another privately-owned site.

First Selectman Herbert Rosenthal has endorsed exempting the town from the topsoil transfer prohibition. At $22 per cubic yard delivered and unscreened, the 2,500 cubic yards of topsoil that would be transferred from the 5/6 school site to the high school would be worth about $55,000.

 It serves the public interest to have a valuable material, such as topsoil, transferred from one public property, where it is not needed, to another public property where it is needed, the first selectman said.

Allowing a municipality to make such topsoil transfers is fundamentally different than allowing a private developer to make topsoil transfers from one private property to another private property, he said.

Mr Rosenthal said the zoning enforcement officer had informed him that topsoil was being taken off the 5/6 school site and shipped to the high school, in violation of applicable zoning rules. The first selectman said he then informed school officials that such activity is prohibited by the zoning regulations. School officials then requested creation of a regulatory mechanism that would allow a topsoil transfer, Mr Rosenthal said. The selectmen endorsed that request in August, after which they forwarded proposed zoning rule changes to P&Z for a September 20 public hearing. P&Z has not yet acted on the topsoil proposal.

Opposition

At the hearing, local developer/builder Kim Danziger took exception with the proposal to exempt the town from the topsoil transfer prohibition. Mr Danziger this week said it would be discriminatory for the town to exempt itself from a regulation that applies to private developers.

“Discrimination has no place in a town like Newtown, and if Planning and Zoning would permit discrimination to take place, I would oppose it in anyway that was available to me,” Mr Danziger said in a statement.

“Only because the town got caught violating their own regulation are they now seeking to amend an existing bad regulation, but in doing so they are willing to commit discrimination,” Mr Danziger said.

“It will be interesting to see how the Planning and Zoning Commission interprets the aquifer protection regulations, should the town start to move topsoil onto the high school property. It will also be interesting to see if they move more than 200 yards of topsoil, or if they are going to exempt themselves from another planning and zoning regulation,” Mr Danziger said.

School Superintendent John Reed said September 26 that a government’s topsoil transfer for the public good is basically different than topsoil transfer by a private party.

The athletic fields behind the high school have deteriorated to a point where they are no longer playable, Dr Reed said. Improving those fields initially was part of the high school expansion project, which was completed in 1997. Cost constraints, however, resulted in the athletic field improvements being deleted from that high school expansion project, he said.

Ronald Bienkowski, the school system’s business director, said the field improvement project would result in more fields and better fields for football, soccer, lacrosse, field hockey, softball, and multiple uses.

The athletic field improvement project would be completed by June 2002, with the fields in use by spring 2003. Voters approved funds for the athletic field improvement project at a June town meeting.