Proposed changes to the regulations that govern land use in New Canaan, now before the town, appear harmless but in fact have dramatic and harmful implications, according to a consultant hired by a set of neighbors opposed to them.
Grace Farms’ proposed text amendments to the New Canaan Zoning Regulations appear “innocuous at first blush,” according to Don Poland, senior vice president and managing director of urban planning at East Hartford-based Goman+York.
Yet if the Planning & Zoning Commission were to approve the organization’s application, it would “exacerbate the issues of appropriate scale, intensity of use and threats of encroachment across all zones—residential and commercial—in New Canaan,” Poland said in a report filed with P&Z.
Specifically, Grace Farms—a “religious institution,” under the regulations—is for practical reasons seeking permission to have more than one such principal use designation. Yet “if the proposed regulation amendment is approved, not only can Grace Farms Foundation be allowed to continue its request for multiple principal uses, but also could subsequently apply for additional principal uses, such as Elderly Housing, Adult Housing, Congregate Care, Bed and Breakfast, Private School, Day Care and Private Recreation,” according to Poland’s May 15 report.
“In fact, the critical point is that the same is true of any property in a Residence Zone—institutional or not. This is important to understand. If the Application is approved, it’s not simply the Grace Farms Foundation and the Grace Farms site that is afforded these new liberties of multiple principal uses on a single lot or parcel of land. The proposed regulation amendment will apply to all properties in the Residence Zones. Therefore, any owner of residentially zoned property could apply for multiple principal uses on their site—including all institutional uses.”
He added: “The regulation amendment proposed by the Grace Farms Foundation appears to be a simple approach to solving its problem of not being allowed to have multiple principal uses on a single parcel/lot or site in New Canaan’s lowest density 4-acre residence zone. Unfortunately, the proposed regulation amendment is not so simple and has significant, negative ramifications for the community of New Canaan. Changing the definition of principal use to allow multiple principal uses represents a drastic change to the Comprehensive Plan of Zoning that will have significant impacts on provisions throughout the New Canaan Zoning Regulations. Not only does such a change conflict with the Comprehensive Plan of Zoning but also it ignores the concerns and recommendation of the New Canaan Plan of C&D. Granting this Application for a regulation amendment will undermine the reasonable expectations of property owners as to the present and future use of land, and exacerbate the issues of appropriate scale, intensity of us, and threats of encroachment across all zones—residential and commercial—in New Canaan.”
Prepared at the request of Smith Ridge Road’s Jennifer Holme and David Markatos (residents in other parts of town have voiced similar concerns), the report hits on arguments that critics are raising as they oppose Grace Farms’ bid to facilitate—by changing the New Canaan Zoning Regulations—a larger application for an amended zoning permit.
During the Planning & Zoning Commission’s initial public hearing on the matter last month, attorneys representing the religious institution did not address directly such far-reaching implications as those spelled out by Poland.
Instead, attorney Edward O’Hanlon of Stamford-based Robinson + Cole argued that religious and other institutions in New Canaan already have multiple principal uses on their properties, that the town’s regulations for special permits give P&Z a chance to review applications for their intensity and as such, the text amendment itself is not needed.
“The [Grace Farms] Foundation’s position remains that the text change is not necessary, that the issue of multiple uses is part of the intensity review that you do under your special permit criteria,” O’Hanlon said during the May 30 hearing, held at Town Hall. “The zoning regulations already allow them. You have historically allowed them and Connecticut law supports that practice. So we have offered them, ask you to consider them and grant them.”
O’Hanlon said he and his team team have “researched the town records [and] zoning regulations and have demonstrated that a number of town-owned properties, churches and private schools have more than one principal special permit use attached to it.”
He called the opposition made by attorneys on behalf of some Grace Farms neighbors “a red herring type argument, an attempt to create an appeal issue,” and said that although he filed for the text amendment on advice from the town planner and town attorney, “it is not a smart thing to do, in my view.”
“Grace Farms Foundation is anxious to work with the town. And so in deference to [Town Planner] Mr. [Steve] Palmer’s view and [Town Attorney] Mr. [Ira] Bloom’s view, we agreed to do that. We have not changed our view that we want this hearing to focus on the special permit, but this text change is not necessary.”
He continued: “The fundamental objection we had to this hyper-technical objection is that you all had very specific special permit criteria that you take into consideration, [including] the intensity of use or uses proposed. And that that necessarily subsumes any issue of whether one or more than one [principal use] is appropriate, and you have done that. You have done that with churches that have daycare centers, you have done that with the town buildings. You have done that in any number of examples. So that is why we believe that if a text change is what you want, this will get us there. The one advantage I will concede is that a text change is a legislative act and when it is challenged on appeal, it is entitled to the greatest deference by the court. But relative to what your decision is on special permits, that is a legal distinction.”
A communications consultant representing Grace Farms, Gwen North Reiss, sent the following statement to NewCanaanite.com when asked for a comment on this article, saying it was attributable to Grace Farms Foundation: “We hope that the Planning and Zoning Commission has a better sense of our plans after Ted O’Hanlon and Sharon Prince’s presentations last month on how we can engage and welcome the community, while also making modifications to our operations and landscaping to address the neighbors’ concerns. We look forward to continuing our discussion at the next Planning and Zoning meeting on June 26 in order to reach a resolution that is fair and reasonable to all parties involved, while still allowing Grace Farms Foundation and Grace Community Church to continue the mission of serving others.”
(The statement referred to Prince, the president of Grace Farms, who addressed P&Z for about 20 minutes during the May hearing, highlighting some of the organization’s work.)
The meeting on Monday is scheduled to start at 6 p.m. at Town Hall.
Grace Farms in its latest application to amend its zoning permit is seeking permission to use parts of its big Lukes Wood Road campus regularly for large events (though a third-party consultant is recommending far less frequent, smaller uses).
The organization opened its campus to the public in the fall of 2015, and about six months later, neighbors and then town officials flagged what they considered violations of the terms of its existing zoning permit. Attorneys for Grace Farms have never conceded that the organization has run afoul of that permit, saying instead that it’s applying to P&Z for new principal uses for practical reasons (for example, because government and other organizations cannot partner with a religious institution, which is how Grace now is defined under the zoning regulations).
Yet P&Z Chairman John Goodwin at the May hearing reiterated that though “the commission broadly feels that what Grace Farms has been doing has been beneficial in many ways to the town of New Canaan,” still “the commission also feels that the special permit in certain areas has been exceeded.”
“That is what the commission needs now to go forward to resolve,” Goodwin said. “The commission, as we always prefer, would have preferred that a solution be worked out between the neighbors and applicant—that does not seem to be case.”
P&Z commissioners gave little indication at the May hearing whether or how they’re leaning with respect to Grace Farms’ text amendment application.
Yet one member of the volunteer group, commissioner Laszlo Papp, voiced strong support for Grace Farms generally as a community asset. According to Papp, P&Z before getting into details about principal versus accessory uses must try to agree on Grace Farms’ broader role in New Canaan.
“In my view—and I have more than 20 years experience here—I see that there are basically two activities here: A church activity is community activity,” he said. “And you can have a myriad of other things, and never in my 20 years [has] a conflict appeared between these activities. Just as you go to May Fair at St. Mark’s, it is the same. Church and state are separate. Church and community are not. They are the same, the way I see it. And this is a principal tenet in Christian culture and the foundation of the country is based on this, and New Canaan Parish was based on that. And trying to create conflict between the two is mean-spirited and wrong. Those who could try to find a legal argument to deny this very basic truth of the culture, they do harm to this culture of what we believe in.”
It isn’t clear whether or how Papp’s view addresses what could amount to precedent-setting in the case of Grace Farms.
An attorney hired by one set of neighbors, Amy Zabetakis of Darien-based Rucci Law Group, told P&Z that changing New Canaan’s zoning regulations to remove the word ‘principal’ entirely from use definitions is a significant change.
Grace Farms conceivably could put forward an application for a special permit identifying “accessory” or “secondary” uses, she said.
“They can do that, but they are asking for something very different,” Zabetakis said. “If you want to use the church versus daycare example, if that church went out of business and left, the daycare would, as well. It is not a standalone entity. What the [Grace Farms] Foundation is asking for here is to be allowed to operate as a separate standalone entity with its own silo, and if the church goes away, they continue to operate in this fashion.”
That is not what had been envisioned when Grace Community Church and Grace Farms first came forward from 2007 to 2012 with their application for a religious use, she said.
“And that [as a religious institution] is the way it has been considered,” Zabetakis said. “If they want to open things up and have a different principal use, it is not an application to amend their special permit—it is a brand-new [one].”
Asked by Papp what is the rationale behind requiring just one principal use instead of two, Zabetakis responded that that’s what ‘principal’ means and that the word had been added to the New Canaan Zoning Regulations “to provide that definitional structure.”
Papp said: “In my view, the church use and community use, side-by-side, are both principal, both important and both equal.”
Zabetakis said she agreed that both are important and that a church may have community functions that are accessory to it, “but Grace Farms is asking for something different here.”
“They are not asking that they be permitted to continue as a religious institution and add on as secondary uses these other community events,” she said. “They are asking for three separate principal standalone uses on this site and that is not what your regulations currently allow.”
In his report, Poland takes issue with assertions that appear to downplay the effects of the proposed zoning regulation changes, calling them “seemingly minor.”
“For example, if the proposed regulation amendment is approved, not only can Grace Farms Foundation be allowed to continue its request for multiple principal uses, but also could subsequently apply for additional principal uses, such as Elderly Housing, Adult Housing, Congregate Care, Bed and Breakfast, Private School, Day Care and Private Recreation,” Poland said.
He continued, saying that if the application is approved, “any owner of residentially zoned property could apply for multiple principal uses on their site—including all institutional uses.”
“This request for such a significant change should raise many concerns and questions as to how the Zoning Regulations and specific provisions will be applied and allowed if the Application is approved.”
Grace Farms Foundation has gone out of its way to say publicly that it is not a “religious institution.” Accordingly, one must ask why the applicant was identified as a “religious institution” in its original zoning permit application. Was the “religious institution” rubric adopted in good faith or as a ruse to enable the foundation to attract support it might not otherwise have received?