Westport residents appeal affordable housing project near Norwalk
Neighbors on Hiawatha Lane Extension, a slender street that connects to Hiawatha Lane near the Norwalk line, are in search of to stop the task they argue will alter, encroach upon or wipe out parts of their road.
They also say the enhancement goes in opposition to the one-relatives dwelling restriction there and will create flooding concerns, increase site visitors and limit on-road parking, as nicely as hurt their assets values.
The venture has been in the performs for additional than 18 decades, which include zoning denials and courtroom hearings prior to the town’s organizing and zoning commission settled with the developer Summit Saugatuck LLC in May well 2021.
The job was scaled again a bit as aspect of the settlement, bringing it down from 187 units to 157 and reducing just one of the proposed properties. The agreement also requires some of the models have 3 bedrooms to superior provide households and provides numerous fire safety stipulations and other circumstances.
A essential portion of the settlement is letting the city continue to keep its moratorium against proposals filed beneath the 8-30g state statute, which enables developers to circumvent community zoning rules if a certain proportion of the advancement has very affordable housing.
Neighbors objected to the settlement and submitted a lawsuit of their possess final slide in Hartford Superior Courtroom, seeking an injunction on the undertaking.
“The proposed progress shall damage just one of the several current operating class neighborhoods in the town of Westport at the expenditure of the remaining residents,” the neighbors’ grievance states.
A essential element of the scenario depended on irrespective of whether there was a “common plan” for those tons that restricted enhancement to a single-loved ones home.
Judge Marshall Berger dominated in favor of Summit Saugatuck on Could 31, indicating all 3 of the components that would negate the residents’ argument were current. He also agreed with Summit’s argument that “no enforceable typical prepare existed or exists nowadays.”
“First, quite a few of the loads, together with the tons in Norwalk, ended up retained as unrestricted adjoining land,” Berger writes. “Second, there is no map of the full tract with the restriction on it. 3rd, there were no solitary household limits put on 11 of the 22 plenty.”
The neighbors then filed to have the situation reargued and reconsidered, expressing the Norwalk tract shouldn’t have been thought of ahead of, there was a “common plan” for the Westport parcels due to the fact 11 of all those loads experienced constraints and the decide “misapprehended materials info and misapplied applicable regulation.”
Berger denied the neighbors’ request to reargue the case saying it “is not to be utilised as an opportunity to have a second chunk of the apple” or current added situations or briefs.
The scenario now sits in the appellate court docket.
Timothy Hollister, the legal professional symbolizing Summit, declined to comment.
