Government

Bested in Legal Arguments, Attorneys for Grace Farms Now Pursue Changes to Zoning Regulations

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Grace Farms last week conceded a key legal point in its long-running bid to secure permission for robust and varied activities at its Lukes Wood Road campus. Attorneys on behalf of Grace Farms have argued that the organization is allowed to operate not only as a religious institution, as defined in the New Canaan Zoning Regulations and as approved four years ago, but—with approval from the Planning & Zoning Commission—as a club/organization and philanthropic/charitable agency, too. Gaining those new “use designations” formed the major goal of an application filed in September on behalf of Grace Farms by attorneys with Stamford-based Robinson & Cole. Yet lawyers retained by neighbors—concerned since Grace Farms opened to the public in October 2015 about what’s actually happening there, as opposed to what had been described during public hearings—successfully argued that the regulations do not allow for more than one “principal use” at Grace Farms.

That has forced the organization now to withdraw its full application with P&Z and first pursue a text change to those regulations. Neighbors Jennifer Holme and David Markatos, who are represented by attorney Amy Souchuns of Milford-based Hurwitz, Sagarin, Slossberg & Knuff LLC, told NewCanaanite.com that they are “pleased to see that the town has finally recognized that having multiple principal uses in the 4-acre, lowest density residential zone is in direct contravention of not only New Canaan’s zoning regulations and special permit criteria but also the Plan of Conservation and Development.”

The Smith Ridge Road residents noted that in an April 21 report Donald Poland, a planning consultant at New York City-based Goman+York, found that the number of principal uses Grace Farms actually is seeking is seven: foundation, church, club, restaurant, commercial conference center, public park and office building.

Government

‘Grace Farms Continues To Flout the Restrictions It Agreed To’: Concerns Persist As New Filing Nears

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Grace Farms has failed to comply with temporary measures imposed by the town while the organization prepares a new application to amend its zoning permit, according to representatives for two sets of direct neighbors. While the town planner has worked hard to help Grace prepare a more appropriate application than what had been filed in the fall (and later withdrawn, after a consultant found it problematic), and also has tried to address neighbors’ concerns, the latter “remain troubled by Grace Farms’ lack of transparency and lack of accountability,” a Darien-based attorney representing the owners of two abutting residences said in a March 3 letter to Planning & Zoning. “While the neighbors would like to be able to work with Grace Farms, it is challenging to do so when Grace Farms refuses to communicate with the [neighbors] or their attorneys and when Grace Farms continues to flout the restrictions it agreed to at the end of January,” attorney Amy Zabetakis of Rucci Law Group said in a letter sent to Town Attorney Steve Palmer and obtained by NewCanaanite.com. Specifically, according to the letter, Grace has failed to comply with measures designed to reduce lighting through the night, to halt for now the scheduling of new evening activities and the scheduling of new “space grants” beyond what already is booked. For example, lights at the “River Building” have been left on all night (apart from one Tuesday night when they went off at 1:30 a.m.), when other than the basketball court they were to be turned off no later than 8:30 p.m. (and the court itself no later than 9:30 p.m.).

Government

Town to Grace Farms: Supply a List of Scheduled Events and, For Now, Stop Booking New Ones

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Town officials on Monday instructed Grace Farms to stop booking new events on its campus and provide details of all activities planned for the next six months, pending a final decision of a yet-to-be-filed application to amend its operating permit. Citing “outstanding violations” of Grace Farms’ existing permit, the town planner in a letter obtained by NewCanaanite.com specified that the organization’s list of activities “shall include the date of the event, the event or group name, the location of the property, start and end times, and the number of attendees expected.”

Town Planner Steve Palmer also instructed Grace Farms to file its new application within 45 days—rather than 60, as the organization had proposed—and called for stronger measures to prevent visitors from wandering toward neighbors’ properties. “These additional measures are integral to this process and compliance with them will be a consideration of the [Planning & Zoning] Commission’s review of the future Special Permit application,” Palmer said. The measures come one week after Grace Farms withdrew an application to amend its zoning permit—a decision prompted by the findings of a third-party consultant that found the application lacking. According to Simsbury-based consulting firm Planimetrics, Grace Farms instead of seeking to add new principal uses to its approved use as a religious institution, should put in for an entirely new special permit.

Around Town

Neighbors: Grace Farms Is Trying to Rewrite History, Mislead the Town

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Grace Farms in seeking to continue using its campus in ways that the town never imagined or approved—and in staking out an untenable legal position to defend its misuse—is rewriting the public record and deliberately misleading planning officials, according to those opposed to a new application from the organization. Contrary to what Grace Farms has said in seeking to amend again its operating permit, and reiterated at a public hearing last month, an entity called ‘Grace Farms Foundation’ never has been granted the right to operate the organization’s 80-acre Lukes Wood Road site, according to a letter filed Friday with the town by an attorney representing concerned neighbors. When local planning officials approved an amended permit nearly four years ago—an approval followed at Grace by the rise of ‘The River’ structure and, in violation of that permit, the wide-ranging programs that operate out of its various buildings—it was to then-property owner Grace Property Holdings LLC “which actively and expressly presented the application to be solely for the benefit of Grace Community Church,” according to a letter filed with the Planning & Zoning Commission by attorney Amy Zabetakis of Darien-based Rucci Law Group. So it’s no wonder that Grace Farms Foundation now wishes to come back to P&Z “to obtain the kind of broad expansion of usage for a range of activities they are now seeking.”

“The current application seeks such an expansive set of activities with so few limitations that it is in essence seeking formal approval to convert Grace Farms from a home for a church, under the existing special permit, into an operation with virtually unrestricted capacity to pursue a myriad of non-profit and for profit and revenue raising initiatives, that happens to be home to a Grace Community Church as well (for so long as the Foundation chooses not to revoke its license),” Zabetakis wrote. “Indeed, Grace Community Church has become the ancillary use.”

P&Z is expected to hear from concerned neighbors and their representatives, including Zabetakis as well as attorney Amy Souchuns of Milford-based Hurwitz Sagarin Slossberg & Knuff LLC, during a public hearing at 7 p.m. Tuesday.

Government

‘Take a Big Step Back’: Neighbors, Residents Voice Opposition to Plans for Roger Sherman Redevelopment

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The proposed redevelopment of the Roger Sherman Inn is too dense for its neighborhood and flies in the face of the documents that govern and guide zoning in New Canaan, an attorney representing opponents of the plan said Tuesday night. Creating seven single-family homes on the 1.8-acre lot at 195 Oenoke Ridge Road where the historic inn and restaurant now stand “really is not in keeping with the properties you see along Oenoke Ridge Road,” according to Amy Zabetakis of Darien-based Rucci Law Group. She represents six neighbors of the inn, on Holmewood and Hampton Lanes. “I think you really need to take a big step back and really make sure that this is something you want to encourage in town,” she told members of the Planning & Zoning Commission during the first public hearing regarding the Roger Sherman Inn proposal, held at Town Hall. “I was hoping to come here today that I would hear something from the applicant about how this plan does conform with the Plan of Conservation and Development, how it does conform with existing New Canaan regulations, because I think that is an essential part of your analysis.