Though he apparently had been informed otherwise, a Weed Street man told the town that a plan to repair a stone bridge—a span that forms part of an original, disused route to a neighbor’s 15-acre property—required his own approval, officials said this week.
The stream crossing in question at 590 Weed St.
Yet several days prior to making that claim at a May meeting of the Inland Wetlands Commission, Craig Kingsley of 592 Weed St. had been told by a land surveyor that his own property in fact did not touch the dilapidated 110-year-old bridge in question and so the project did not need his sign-off, according to a local landscape architect who addressed the commission Monday night on behalf of the applicant.
In fact, the bridge is owned “by nobody other than” Austin Furst of 590 Weed St., Keith Simpson of Simpson Associates said during the commission’s regular meeting, held at Town Hall.
“But because the neighbor [Kingsley] was rather insistent that he did, we carried the meeting forward and then found out from the surveyors that, in fact, he had been informed a week before by them that he did not own any portion of the bridge, so I am sort of puzzled that he would tell the commission that he still thought he did,” Simpson said.
That bit of confusion cleared up, the commission voted unanimously to approve Simpson’s plan for the bridge’s restoration, closing the loop on an odd situation involving hostile neighbors that emerged publicly in April. The commission received a petition from some neighbors seeking a public hearing connected to what appeared to be a rather straightforward plan: An existing stream crossing and bridge structure is to be repaired before it deteriorates further. The retaining walls on either side of a culvert will be replaced, as well as the drive that crosses the structure above.
Specifically, for reasons not made clear, the neighbors at that time had been seeking to get onto Furst’s property during a routine site visit by commissioners.
Though Furst’s 109-year-old, 8,500-square-foot home on the 15-acre property is accessible from a driveway that comes off of Frogtown Road, the Weed Street approach is the original entrance to the property, Simpson has said. In April, following a land swap with one neighbor that gave him the bridge, Furst acquired that neighbor’s property outright for $1.5 million, leaving little doubt about who owns it.
Yet Kingsley, owner of one of a few residential parcels along the Weed Street driveway, said at the May meeting that a survey done by local land surveyor RKW in 2014 showed that his property touches the stone bridge, according to minutes of the meeting (embedded below as a PDF).
Local regulations (see section 8.3.2 of the Inland Wetlands and Watercourses Regulations here) provide “that if the applicant is not the owner of the land on which the subject activity is proposed then written consent of the owner shall be submitted, so he [Kingsley] is suggesting that he has evidence that his property line sits on that bridge and Mr. Furst has not asked for his consent for this construction project to move forward,” the May meeting’s minutes said.
“Mr. Kingsley said RKW again in the last year did a survey of this property … and the wooden stake is there today sitting on the bridge, not five feet short as the Simpson & Associates diagram shows, but actually on the bridge. He has talked to Mr. Furst several times in the last six months and asked him why he wants to reopen the bridge, and he has never given him a straight answer on why he needs a second driveway to his home. There are extensive and beautiful pristine wetlands that this bridge crosses, and to redo that bridge would destroy tremendous amounts of wetland. He asked the commission to delay the application to determine whether his property line sits on that bridge.”
And the commission did so, continuing the item through June and until this week, when Simpson revealed that Kingsley seems to have told the commission one thing in May after he’d been informed otherwise. Kingsley did not attend the meeting on Monday.
The home at 590 Weed St. in New Canaan. Assessor photo
Commissioners during the meeting stopped short of asking about a possible subdivision (the property is in the 2-acre zone), putting questions to Simpson about whether Kingsley has the right to use the bridge (he has no need to), whether an application would need to be made to the Planning & Zoning Commission for the bridge (no, it’s on private property, though if there was a subdivision proposal it would go to P&Z), whether after crossing the bridge Furst intends to use the road that forks to the right or left (it isn’t clear though the one on the right goes to the main house) and whether a driveway to the same house from Frogtown Road crosses wetlands (no).
Angela Jameson, the commission’s secretary, said the group’s site visit was helpful and asked whether Furst, since he acquired the 3.06-acre property at 588 Weed St. in April, intends to “do any work within the property line or put equipment there.”
Simpson responded that no plans yet have been developed for that property and only the bridgework needed at this point.
Jameson asked whether a new application would be submitted once plans are developed to the extent that they might impact wetlands.
Simpson answered: “Definitely, absolutely.”
“And I expect that will happen, but I really have no idea when he will decide what to do. It’s really a fairly recent development, his ownership of that property.”
Simpson said the bridge project will be done “in a very interesting and a responsible historic way, actually.”
“So the bridge will be not unlike what it was like when it was built 100 years ago, except we are taking those rather odd little cubes of stone on top of the bridge and replacing them with a wooden guiderail, which is rather more serviceable and attractive as well,” he said.
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