The owners of a Lukes Wood Road home on Monday are appealing the New Canaan Planning & Zoning Commission’s denial of their request to allow higher-than-allowed pillars for a gate at the end of their driveway.
The pillars and gate out front of 309 Lukes Wood Road. Credit: Michael Dinan
The pillars—which stand about six and seven feet above grade, given the slope of the land, against the four feet allowed by the New Canaan Zoning Regulations (see Section 6.5.C.3.a on page 126 here)—already are in place at the plaintiffs’ home at 309 Lukes Wood Road. That’s because they were re-installed when the homeowners reconfigured the driveway following municipal approvals and a lengthy process that involved the rare purchase of town-owned land to make the new, safer layout possible, according to a complaint filed in state Superior Court in Stamford.
Approaching the driveway of 309 Lukes Wood Road in New Canaan. A deer fence that had been installed by the stone wall here has since been removed. Credit: Michael Dinan
But town officials said a special permit was needed to retain the pillars, and an application for that permit was denied 8-1 last month by the Planning & Zoning Commission, the complaint says.
The decision was: reached by weighing inaccurate information; unsupported by the record; based on irrelevant arguments and findings; and “contrary to and inconsistent with applications of the standards and requirements of the Town of New Canaan Zoning Regulations with regards to pillars, gates and walls in the Town of New Canaan,” according to the complaint.
“The existing Special Permit standards and requirements of the Town of New Canaan Zoning Regulations fail to provide guidance to a property owner as to the basis for a decision,” the complaint says.
The plaintiffs add: “The Commission’s decision unreasonably restricts the Plaintiffs’ use of its property and arbitrarily reduces the value of that property; The Commission has unfairly taken the reasonable use of Plaintiffs’ Property by regulatory fiat; and the conduct of the administrative review constituted a patently unfair proceeding in violation of the Plaintiffs’ due process rights.”
Attorneys for the plaintiff, from Stamford-based Carmody Torrance Sandak & Hennessey LLP, were not immediately available for comment.
The homeowners at 309 Lukes Wood Road are Aris and Patricia Kekedjian. Among other reasons, commissioners by way of denying the special permit application objected to what one P&Z member called a “bunker-like quality” that is effected when a stone wall, landscaping and higher-than-usual gate and pillars are taken together at the front of the home. Commissioners also said the looming quality of the arrangement was out of character with the neighborhood.