Property Owners To Hear About Upzoning Court Case

By Andrew Gorosko

The Newtown Property Owners Association, an ad hoc group that strongly opposes the Planning and Zoning Commission’s (P&Z) recent “upzoning” of more than 2,300 residential properties, has scheduled an association meeting for Monday, November 13, to discuss the issue. The session is slated for 7 pm in the lecture hall at Newtown High School, Berkshire Road, Sandy Hook.

Association members charge that upzoning harms the rights of affected property owners and decreases affected properties’ market value.

In September, P&Z members unanimously approved upzoning, a sweeping plan which upgrades the zoning designations of an aggregate area greater than 2,500 acres, affecting approximately 2,315 properties, almost 2,000 of which have dwellings on them. Upzoning increases minimum zoning requirements and decreases potential residential construction densities. Upzoning is intended to protect groundwater quality in general, and to preserve the drinking water quality of the Pootatuck Aquifer in south-central Newtown in particular. Upzoning also is intended to prevent the need to expand the municipal sewer system.

A lawyer representing six plaintiffs who are challenging upzoning in Danbury Superior Court is scheduled to attend the November 13 association session to answer questions on that administrative appeal. The appeal is one of two separate lawsuits that have been filed which challenge the need for upzoning and seek to have a judge overturn it.

The property owners association is not a plaintiff in either lawsuit, but association spokesman Barry Piesner has said the group has raised money to support one of the two legal appeals. Resident Richard Haight, who owns 3.7 acres at 99 Church Hill Road in Sandy Hook, is a plaintiff in that lawsuit. Mr Haight is association president.

Also at the November 13 session, Green Party political officials are scheduled to discuss plans to run a slate of Green Party candidates in the November 2001 elections in Newtown, according to the association.

In the 2001 elections, the association will seek to unseat P&Z members who have supported upzoning, according to Mr Piesner.

Association members organized their opposition to upzoning last winter. P&Z members had been discussing upzoning since 1996.