“Eyesore” Billboards Removed From South Main Street

By Andrew Gorosko

In a matter of minutes September 29, three landmarks, or what some people might call eyesores, came tumbling down under fierce prodding by an excavation machine.

Workmen rapidly tore down three billboards, which had stood for more than 40 years at 137 South Main Street.

The town has few billboards. It has three fewer now.

Although the three billboards had stood alongside South Main Street for decades, they were non-conforming uses of the property, under the terms of the town’s zoning regulations.

The signs were considered “pre-existing, nonconforming uses,” which were allowed to remain in place after local zoning went into effect in 1959.

 Two of the billboards held advertisements for area radio stations, which encouraged passing motorists to tune in to the stations to listen to popular music. One billboard held an ad for a steelyard which is open to the public.

Last year, the Planning and Zoning Commission (P&Z) required the three billboards to be demolished as a condition of approval for the planned construction of the town’s first self-storage complex nearby.

In September 1999, P&Z members unanimously approved a request for a special exception to the zoning regulations from Thomas Christiano, a principal of CAP Properties Newtown, LLC, of Bridgeport, to build a complex consisting of hundreds of individual, locked storage rooms at 133 South Main Street. The two-acre site lies in an M-5 Industrial zone on the east side of South Main Street, about 600 feet south of South Main Street’s northerly intersection with Pecks Lane. The property is known as Parcel A-2 in an industrial subdivision which was approved by the P&Z in the past for Newtown Savings Bank.

In a September 26 letter to Mr Christiano, zoning enforcement officer Gary Frenette reminded the builder that the P&Z’s approval of the self-storage project required billboard demolition.

In a September 28 letter to Mr Frenette, attorney Robert Accomando, representing Lamar Company, LLC, sought to have the signs remain. Lamar had been leasing space on the property for the billboards.

But the town then insisted that the signs come down if the self-storage complex were to go up, so the billboards fell after several fierce thrusts by the excavator, Mr Frenette said.

Planned site development work on the property will prepare it for the construction of the self-storage complex. Work will involve removing more than 5,600 cubic yards of rock ledge and soil.

Plans which Mr Christiano has provided to the P&Z depict a 50,000-square-foot complex that will be built in two construction phases. Plans call for two long utilitarian buildings to be constructed parallel to South Main Street. Fourteen parking spaces are planned.

According to the design plans, the storage units will be seven different sizes in square footages of 25, 50, 75, 100, 150, 200, and 300.

Besides the requirement that the billboards be demolished, P&Z members placed other conditions on the approval. These include: that visual buffer strips of vegetation be planted along the eastern, southern, and northern edges of the property to obscure the self-storage structures; that a sign for the business not be internally lit and that it not include the business’s telephone number; that the business’s sign be black and white, not black and yellow; and that a security gate be provided at the entrance.