Borough Zoners Reject Hook & Ladder Firehouse Proposal

By Andrew Gorosko

Following lengthy review, Borough Zoning Commission (BZC) members this week unanimously rejected a proposal from Newtown Hook & Ladder Company No. 1, Inc, to construct an 11,414-square-foot firehouse at 12 Sugar Street (Route 302).

The four voting BZC members on February 7 studied an elaborate checklist while reviewing the construction proposal, taking numerous votes on the various criteria that they consider for such site development plan applications. Voting on the proposal were Douglas Nelson, David Francis, Brid Craddock, and Lucy Emerson Sullivan.

After the eight separate vote tallies were made, BZC members then cast an overall vote, unanimously rejecting the application.

In rejecting the application, BZC members cast negative votes in terms of issues including: architectural harmony with the neighborhood; property values; health and safety hazards; conformance with the intent and spirit of the zoning regulations; the adequacy and streets and driveways; and conformance with all applicable borough, town, and state laws, ordinances, regulations and codes.

BZC members cast positive votes in terms of issues including: the conservation of natural terrain and vegetation; minimizing excessive lighting and noise; and the design of utilities and drainage.

More than 15 Hook & Ladder firefighters attended the BZC session, as did a group of Sugar Street area residents who have opposed constructing a firehouse in their neighborhood.

When the results of the multiple votes became clear, the firefighters briskly left the session. By contrast, the project’s opponents appeared to be relieved.

Bill McCarthy, chairman of the volunteer fire company’s building committee, expressed disappointment over the BZC’s decision.

“We spent a lot of time and money getting to this point, and I’m very disappointed,” he said. The volunteer firefighters had presented many facts to the BZC on why the project should be approved, he said.

Fire company members will now discuss how to proceed and will be contacting their lawyer on the matter, he said. The organization has no alternative location in mind for a new firehouse, he said.

The proposed firehouse would replace the aging, deteriorated town-owned firehouse now used by Hook & Ladder at 45 Main Street, behind Edmond Town Hall.

In January, the fire company filed an appeal in Danbury Superior Court in seeking to overturn the Inland Wetlands Commission’s December decision not to issue the project a wetlands/watercourses environmental protection permit. That permit is a necessary component of such a project. The appeal is pending in court.

Under the firehouse proposal, the Borough of Newtown Land Trust, Inc, and the R. Scudder Smith Family Partnership would donate land for the project. Mr Smith is the owner/publisher of The Newtown Bee.

Mr Smith has said the Smith Family Partnership will not be a party to the court appeal that has been filed by Hook & Ladder.

Fire company members have maintained that 12 Sugar Street is a good place to build a new firehouse because it is centrally located within the organization’s fire district. Approximately one acre of the wet 9.4-acre site would be developed with a firehouse and related facilities.

Some people living in the Sugar Street neighborhood have a different perspective on the matter.

Besides complaints about such a project’s adverse effects on wetlands and watercourses in the area, those who have spoken against constructing a firehouse there have raised various zoning issues.

The opponents contend that locating a fire station there is an inappropriate land use that would be out of character with the residential area, that the presence of such a facility would damage property values in the area, that a fire station would damage the area’s appearance, and that firehouse-related traffic would worsen traffic congestion that occurs in the area during daily commuter rush periods.

In August 2009, the Borough Zoning Board of Appeals (BZBA) unanimously rejected the fire company’s request for a zoning variance for an earlier version of the firehouse project at 12 Sugar Street.

In that decision, BZBA members found that a firehouse would not be in harmony with the general character of the residential neighborhood; the presence of a firehouse and its related fire vehicle traffic would create traffic hazards in the congested area; and that a firehouse’s presence would damage property values in the neighborhood.