Residents Rally To Preserve Their P&Z Protest Rights

By Andrew Gorosko

Walnut Tree Hill Road area residents are protesting a proposal by Walnut Tree Developers to eliminate a zoning regulation designed to allow formal protests of development projects.

Planning and Zoning Commission (P&Z) members March 2 conducted a public hearing on Walnut Tree Developers’ request to eliminate the provision of the zoning regulations.

P&Z members are expected to act on Walnut Tree Developers’ request at an upcoming session.

The zoning regulation that Walnut Tree Developers wants to eliminate reads: “If the owners of 20 percent or more in area of all land (other than streets) lying outside of, but within 500 feet of, each boundary line of the property proposed for a ‘special exception,’ object to the proposed special exception in writing prior to commission action, then the commission may grant said special exception only upon the affirmative vote of at least four members of the commission (including alternates designated to sit for absent members).”

The move would reduce the number of votes needed for approval under such circumstances from a “super majority” of four out of five to a simple majority of three out of five.

Starting in 1995, Walnut Tree Developers built Walnut Tree Village, an 80-unit condominium complex on Walnut Tree Hill Road in Sandy Hook, near Evergreen Road.

Last fall, citing numerous reasons, the P&Z unanimously rejected a proposal from the developers to expand the complex by another 133 units to a total 213 units. The developers are expected to return to the P&Z with another version of the expansion project.

The developers need a “special exception” to the zoning regulations for such an expansion project. If the developers’ proposal to eliminate the zoning regulation on formal protests were approved, it would make it simpler for them to get development approvals.

Since its inception in 1994, Walnut Tree Village has been a magnet for protests from neighboring property owners, who have said the complex has adversely affected the character of the neighborhood, added traffic to a hazardous road, and threatened area underground well water supplies, among other complaints.

Walnut Tree Village opponents have used the zoning regulation on formal protests several times in the past by collecting petition signatures to increase the developers’ difficulty in getting land use approvals.

Stephen Wippermann, the developers’ attorney, argues that because state law does not specifically allow zoning commissions to require a 4-to-1 majority vote to approve “special exception” applications, the P&Z does not have that power, and the regulation should be eliminated. State law only allows such a protest provision for applications for changes of zone, according to the lawyer.

Public Reaction

Resident Meg Maurer of 12 Stone Gate Drive told P&Z members at the March 2 hearing that if they eliminate the regulation, it would undercut the protest powers of people who live near various development sites.

“It’s a very self-serving argument for Walnut Tree Developers to come and ask for this [regulation] to be deleted,” she said.

In a March 1 letter to the P&Z, Virginia Zimmermann Gutbrod of 4 Walnut Tree Hill Road wrote eliminating the protest regulation “would eliminate a check and balance system the residents of the town have. It is probably one of the only regulations which the [townspeople] have that helps them oppose developers with power and large sums of money. We would not allow the federal government to eliminate its check and balance system. We should not allow disgruntled developers to eliminate ours.”

In a February 28 letter to the P&Z, Robert P. Stokes of 89 Church Hill Road wrote “I… can only interpret [the developers’] request as another means of getting around established Newtown zoning regulations to the benefit of Walnut Tree Village and Walnut Tree Developers. It is an attempt to fend off neighborhood property owners who have tried their best to control an unsightly development.”

In a letter to the P&Z, Alexander and Linda McWilliam of 31 Walnut Tree Hill Road write “the deletion of the four out of five [majority] vote takes away basically the last and only tool the local homeowner has of protecting his/her most prized possession from being engulfed in any plan, scheme or development.”

In a March 2 letter to the P&Z, Lucy Emerson Sullivan of 10 Walnut Tree Hill Road describes a petition effort conducted last fall in response to Walnut Tree Developers proposal to expand the complex. Such a petition drive represents “democracy in action,” she wrote.

In a March 1 letter to the P&Z, attorney Helen McGonigle, representing Duane and Linda Jones of 16 Walnut Tree Hill Road, writes, “Deletion of the regulation to suit [the developers’] needs will make approval of the additional 133 elderly housing units all the more easy when [the firm] applies for a special exception… The regulation… was designed to give greater scrutiny to special exception applications.”

In urging that the P&Z deny the requested elimination of the regulation, Ms McGonigle wrote that removing the regulation would have implications far beyond a Walnut Tree Village expansion project.