Quick Words:

Main-St-planning-Borough

Full Text:

Group Seeks To Develop Lots Off Main Street

B Y A NDREW G OROSKO

A development group is seeking approvals to build four single-family houses on

an unusually shaped piece of land in the borough, near the intersection of

Main Street and Sugar Street.

Newtown Borough, Limited Liability Corporation, represented by Attorney John

R. Byrk of Fairfield, is seeking approval from the Borough Zoning Board of

Appeals to build the four houses on 11 acres which abut Main Street, Sugar

Street and the cul-de-sac at the intersection of Lincoln Road and Roosevelt

Drive. Narrow sections of the property extend outward to the streets.

The property's street addresses are 15 Main Street, 7 Main Street, and 12

Sugar Street. The land is in an R-1 Zone.

The Borough Zoning Board of Appeals has scheduled a public hearing on the

applicant's request for lot frontage variances for 8 pm on Wednesday, March

20, at Town Hall South, 3 Main Street.

The applicant has received wetlands construction approvals for the project

from the Conservation Commission. If the proposal receives Borough Zoning

Commission approval for the zoning variances, the construction proposal would

still require a residential subdivision approval from the town's Planning and

Zoning Commission (P&Z). The P&Z, acting as the borough's planning commission,

rules on subdivision requests in the borough because the borough has no

planning commission of its own.

Mr Byrk is the managing member of Newtown Borough, LLC, which also lists

Michelle Ashelford and Gus Curcio as members. Raymond Julian is listed as the

trustee for the owner of the 11 acres.

In order to receive the requested lot frontage variances, the applicant must

prove to the appeals board that a "hardship" exists in connection with the

development of the property. The property has insufficient road frontages for

development.

In a statement of hardship submitted by the applicant to the Borough Zoning

Board of Appeals, Mr Byrk writes that although the borough zoning rules

require a minimum road frontage of 150 feet in the area proposed for

development, previous development, much of which predates the borough zoning

regulations, has resulted in no portion of the 11 acre parcel having

sufficient road frontage to meet the borough zoning rules. Mr Byrk notes that

many other properties which were developed before the borough zoning rules

went into effect have much less road frontage than the rules now require.

Besides the lot frontage zoning variance requests, one of the four proposed

building lots, known as Lot 4, also requires a variance in connection with the

placement of a house on the lot.

Although the proposed lot is more than five acres in a zone where a minimum

one-acre lot is required, site conditions prevent placing a house within a 135

foot square which contains no more than 20 percent wetland soils. The zoning

regulations require such a house placement.

"The literal interpretation of this requirement would clearly result in

exceptional difficulty or unusual hardship in that the parcel would be

rendered completely unusable, which is not the spirit or intent of the zoning

regulations...While the portion of the (proposed) lot on which the home is to

be placed is not wetlands, the 135-foot-square requirement cannot be met," Mr

Byrk writes.