Gas Station Owner Challenges Zoning Variances

By Andrew Gorosko

The owner of Newtown Mobil, a gas station/convenience store at 64 Church Hill Road, has filed a court appeal challenging several setback variances that recently were granted by the town Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA) to a firm that wants to build a new gas station/convenience store across the street at 67 Church Hill Road, a site that formerly held a Shell gas station/convenience store.

Through the May 24 court appeal, Sundaram, LLC, challenges the variances granted by the ZBA on May 2 to Consumers Petroleum of Connecticut, Inc, (CPCI) of Trumbull. Both the ZBA and CPCI are named as defendants in the lawsuit. The court return date is July 10.

CPCI sought several setback variances in connection with the state Department of Transportation’s (DOT) plans to eventually create a four-way intersection of Church Hill Road, Commerce Road, and Edmond Road by repositioning the southern end of Edmond Road directly north of the existing intersection of Church Hill Road and Commerce Road. That intersection realignment is intended to improve traffic flow and traffic safety in the congested area.

CPCI sought the variances to have the one-acre 67 Church Hill Road site be compatible with the future physical changes in the area that would be required by the intersection realignment project.

In the court appeal, Sundaram charges that the variances approved by the ZBA represented illegal, unreasonable, arbitrary, and capricious actions for multiple reasons.

Sundaram contends that the CPCI proposal for a new gas station/convenience store at 67 Church Hill Road amounts to a “self-created hardship” that does not qualify for zoning variances.

In a draft memorandum issued in response to the lawsuit, George Benson, town director of planning and land use, writes, in part, that the variances granted by the ZBA would allow CPCI to construct the same facility at 67 Church Hill Road that it would construct if the DOT did not need to use a section of that property for the planned intersection realignment project.

The ZBA agreed that the intersection realignment probably would be constructed and that the road construction project would result in a hardship created by the town and state, and not be a property owner’s self-created hardship, Mr Benson added.