P&Z Approves Commercial Horse Farm Plan

By Andrew Gorosko

The Planning and Zoning Commission (P&Z) has approved a Morgan Drive couple’s controversial proposal to operate a commercial horse farm, but has placed many restrictions on the facility in light of neighbors’ concerns.

P&Z members April 19 voted 5-to-0 to approve a special exception to the zoning regulations for Annette and Brian Sullivan, allowing them to board horses, to train those horses, and to train the horses’ owners at Zoar Ridge Stables at 5 Morgan Drive. Morgan Drive is a dead-end street off Jeremiah Road in Sandy Hook.

Area residents, especially some residents of Stone Gate Drive, have told town land use agency members for more than two years that allowing the existing horse farm to operate as a commercial stable would damage their quality of life and hurt their property values.

In view of those neighbors’ concerns, P&Z members placed certain restrictions on the use of the 30-acre complex.

The number of boarded horses allowed at the farm will be limited to 15.

The horse farm’s hours of operation on Mondays through Saturdays will be restricted to 8 am to sunset. On Sundays, permitted hours will be 10 am to 6 pm, or until sunset, whichever is earlier.

The hours of operation must be posted where horse owners can see them. The hours of operation must be enforced.

The P&Z is requiring the removal of exterior lighting for evening horseback riding. Such lighting must be removed before any horses are boarded at the farm.  No new lighting may be installed at the farm.

A detailed horse manure management plan developed for Zoar Ridge Stables must be strictly followed. The P&Z approval takes effect April 30.

Voting in favor of the horse farm’s commercial operation were P&Z Chairman Daniel Fogliano and members James Boylan, Lilla Dean, Robert Poulin, and Robert Taylor.

Following the P&Z vote, Robert Sapienza of 6 Stone Gate Drive said of the approval, “We’ll discuss it with our attorney.” Mr Sapienza offered no other comment.

Mr Sapienza has been among the most outspoken critics of the commercial use of the Morgan Drive property. Fairfield attorney John Fallon represents Mr Sapienza and his wife, Donna, and Meg and Christopher Maurer of 12 Stone Gate Drive.

After the P&Z vote, Ms Sullivan said, “I’m thrilled. I hope this will make everyone happy.”

Ms Sullivan said she can operate the horse farm within the restrictions placed on it by the P&Z. Lighting for evening riding on the farm already has been removed, she said.

“I wish that everybody would live [peacefully] with each other,” she said of her desire to restore harmony to a neighborhood where residents have been in conflict over the commercial use of the horse farm.

“Let bygones be bygones,” she said. Ms Sullivan called for people to reconcile their differences over the operation of Zoar Ridge Stables.

“I hope to open May 1,” she said of her plans to start operations at the farm under the terms of the approval granted by the P&Z April 19.

Opponents

At a public hearing last December, opponents of converting the private horse farm into a commercial stable explained their objections to the P&Z, in urging that the land use agency to reject the proposal.

Stone Gate Drive residents told P&Z members that commercial operation of the horse farm would diminish their quality of life and damage their property values.

Ms Sullivan had submitted several proposals to the town for the commercial use of the horse farm since 1999 which were broader in scope than the plans that have been approved by the P&Z.

The April 19 approval represents the fifth time the matter had been before either the P&Z or the Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA) during the past two years. Previous proposals for the commercial use of the horse farm, which had included construction of an indoor horse arena, repeatedly met with staunch opposition from Stone Gate Drive residents, whose relatively new homes lie to the west of the farm.

Ms Sullivan withdrew her first two proposals before the P&Z had acted on them. In June 1999, the P&Z turned down a third proposal. Ms Sullivan challenged that P&Z rejection in Danbury Superior Court, but a judge upheld the P&Z’s action.

Ms Sullivan later secured approval from the zoning enforcement officer to build an approximately 10,000-square-foot indoor horse arena on her property for “personal use,” but Stone Gate Drive neighbors appealed the construction approval to the ZBA, which overturned that approval in May 2000.

In December, Mr Fallon told P&Z members that the Sullivan proposal is not about the keeping of horses, recreational activity, farming, and the preservation of local rural character, but is actually about starting a business in a residential area.

Such a commercial stable would be disruptive to the residential area, Mr Fallon stressed. Such a commercial use does not belong in a residential area because it is incompatible with the neighborhood, he said. The lawyer charged that if the P&Z grants the Sullivans a permit, it would “open a Pandora’s Box” to various horse-related uses of the property.

Mr Fallon has said Ms Sullivan illegally used the property in 1997 and 1998 as a commercial stable, until the P&Z issued a cease-and-desist order against her to stop doing so. Ms Sullivan then added horse-related structures to the property, Mr Fallon said. Ms Sullivan obtained construction permits for those structures after learning that the town requires such permits.

Opponents of the horse farm proposal last year presented petition signatures to the P&Z, requiring that the application receive at least a 4-to-1 super majority vote to be approved, rather than a 3-to-2 simple majority vote.

Proponents

Many people who favor of the Sullivan application spoke on behalf of it at a November 2000 public hearing.

Attorney Robert Hall, representing the Sullivans, said they are limiting the proposal to the “bare bones” needed to operate a horse farm. “It is the basic version of a horse farm,” Mr Hall then said. An earlier version of the proposal requested that 28 horses be boarded at the farm.

Mr Hall had submitted a horse manure management plan to the P&Z, describing how the waste generated by horses would be handled by waste composting and by waste removal.

Mr Hall noted that although Zoning Enforcement Officer Gary Frenette in December 1999 had approved construction of an indoor horse arena at the farm, the ZBA later rejected that approval. The Sullivans decided against appealing that ZBA rejection in court, instead opting to pursue running a “bare bones” horse farm, Mr Hall explained.

Mr Hall said Ms Sullivan had obtained petition signatures, representing more than two dozen properties in the general area, including residents of Morgan Drive, which endorse her plans.

The Sullivans’ plans represents a good use of the property, Mr Hall said, adding that wooded areas surround the site. “We’re trying to convince you that this facility belongs here,” he told P&Z members, adding that the proposal meets the provisions of applicable zoning regulations.

Mr Hall has said that the P&Z has approved similar horse farms in other residential areas in the past.