Court Appeal Filed—

Borough Zoners Review Firehouse Application

By Andrew Gorosko

As Borough Zoning Commission (BZC) members consider Newtown Hook & Ladder Company No. 1 Inc’s, proposal to construct a firehouse at 12 Sugar Street (Route 302), the volunteer fire company has filed an appeal in Danbury Superior Court in seeking to overturn the Inland Wetland Commission’s (IWC) recent unanimous rejection of issuing the firefighters a wetlands/watercourses protection permit for the project.

At a January 24 session, BZC members discussed at length the process, procedures, and methods by which they would be reviewing the firehouse application.

BZC members took no action. They are scheduled to meet again to consider and act on the firehouse application. That session is slated for 7:15 pm on February 7, at Edmond Town Hall.

As the commission members discussed their approach to reviewing the application on January 24, about 15 volunteer firefighters attentively watched the proceedings in the Old Courtroom at Edmond Town Hall. Several Sugar Street area residents who oppose the construction proposal also attended the session.

The BZC’s public hearing on the firehouse application concluded on December 13, so the discussion this week was conducted among commission members only. The commission conducted two lengthy hearings on the zoning application.

Court Appeal

In a related matter, in an administrative appeal filed on January 18 at Danbury Superior Court, Hook & Ladder seeks to overturn the IWC’s December 8 decision against issuing an environmental protection permit.

Besides Newtown Hook & Ladder, the R. Scudder Smith Family Partnership is listed as a plaintiff in that appeal. Besides the IWC, the commissioner of the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) is named as a defendant.

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 Bee.

Approximately one acre of the wet 9.4-acre site would be developed with a firehouse and related facilities.

Mr Smith, representing the family partnership, said this week, “I had no idea [the court appeal] was being filed, and I’m not going to be a part of it in any manner…Our attorney is taking measures to withdraw my name from it…We [partnership members] have no interest in suing the town.”

On December 8, IWC members rejected issuing the wetlands permit sought for constructing an 11,414-square-foot firehouse. The structure would replace the aging, deteriorated town-owned firehouse used by Hook & Ladder at 45 Main Street, behind Edmond Town Hall.

IWC members cited a long list of environmental concerns about the project. Generally, IWC members decided that the project would pose significant adverse effects on wetlands and watercourses. The project would require the earthen filling of about 5,000 square feet of wetlands, without significant mitigation on the site to compensate for that loss of wetlands, according to the IWC.

The IWC held four lengthy public hearings on Hook & Ladder’s application for an environmental protection permit.

The firehouse proposal has drawn strong opposition from some people living near the Sugar Street site.

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 the court appeal, the fire company claims that the IWC improperly denied the environmental protection permit and that the evidence presented by the fire company clearly supports the issuance of such a permit under the terms of the town’s wetlands/watercourses regulations. The fire company consequently urges that the court order the IWC to approve the permit application.

In the appeal, the fire company claims that the IWC’s decision is “unreasonable, improper, illegal, arbitrary, and constitutes an abuse of the discretion, responsibilities and duties vested in the IWC” as provided to it by state law. The court appeal indicates that the application clearly was worthy of receiving the requested environmental protection permit.

In their rejection of a permit, the IWC found that the project would have negative effects on flood storage capacity, streambank stabilization, wildlife habitat, aquatic food sources, water temperature moderation, nutrient removal, and sediment attenuation.

Borough Zoners

At the January 24 BZC session, Borough Counsel Donald Mitchell advised BZC members that the scope of the application would warrant subjecting it to the more detailed standards of review required for a special permit, rather than for a site development plan. The firehouse application was submitted to the BZC as a matter requiring site development plan review.

“I thought this was going to be a lot simpler when we started out,” Mr Mitchell said.

“The [Borough Zoning Board of Appeals] made factual findings,” Mr Mitchell noted in referring to that agency’s unanimous August 2009 rejection of issuing a zoning variance to the firefighters for an earlier version of the firehouse project.

“[The BZBA] found that there would be a traffic problem on the street,” Mr Mitchell noted. The lawyer advised BZC members that they must consider the BZBA’s findings when reviewing the firehouse application.

In August 2009, the BZBA rejected the requested zoning variance that would have allowed the fire company to construct a firehouse closer to Sugar Street than would otherwise be allowed by the zoning regulations. 

In their motion to reject the requested zoning variance, BZBA members cited three basic reasons for turning down the application.

They decided 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.