CEMETERY STREET / MILL POND DEVELOPMENT PASSES ON 6-2 VOTE
In a disappointing and discouraging action last evening, the Planning and Zoning Commission voted 6-2 to APPROVE the 1 Cemetery Street / Mill Pond Development project.
The developers (MF DiScala and Spinnaker Real Estate Partners) were given the green light, with very minor modification, to proceed with the plan exactly as proposed.
The community’s pleas to “scale it back” failed to persuade the Commission to do so, despite ENNA and residents providing the rationale to support the discretion to vote to deny without prejudice. This was due in part to our inability to secure last minute expert testimony to support residents’ concerns with quality of life impacts (traffic, environmental, infrastructure, city services, etc). The testimony we did provide was dismissed, as it was disputed point-by-point by the developer’s experts and by the P&Z Commissioners’ own observations and conclusions.
ENNA urges you to watch the video in its entirety, especially if you have a long-standing or perhaps a newly acquired desire to understand how public process for land use decisions actually works in Norwalk. The meeting was long, and we thank the residents who came out in person to observe, and the many more watching on Zoom. We hope everyone will make the time, if even over several days or nights, to please watch the video. It will be especially important for people to be informed and stay engaged should ENNA and residents decide to appeal this decision, but also as future development applications are submitted.
ENNA will be meeting with our attorney to finalize appeal options and will bring that information to the community, as any decision should be made with the full support of the residents, including funding.
Here are a few preliminary observations:
The Commissioners felt the traffic impacts would not be significant (and in fact expect the road and traffic flow modifications to significantly improve safety and reduce speeding); that there would be little or no environmental impacts -and reiterated that our swans are “invasive and aggressive”; that there is no risk to persons or property related to current or future flooding; and that the fire apparatus access concern raised by our engineer had been adequately addressed. Many felt the applicants proposal adequately addressed ALL possible concerns, including air noise and light pollution (suggesting that Dark Sky standards be imposed for all exterior lighting). They also left the question and timing of test pits for the future building permit processes, so had complete disregard for residents concerns about possible environmental contamination. They did not feel the impacts on infrastructure and city services would be of concern, and though they concluded all utilities are sufficient, they failed to question the validity of the water and sewer department sign-offs.
Though NOT what was requested by the public, there was discussion of a possible additional curb cut to provide another vehicle exit route onto Cemetery Street but it would be a “cut through” tunnel from the garage thru the structure facade, and therefore provide no open space between the facades, nor any view to the pond from the north. Literally none of the requests to scale back height, layout, setbacks, units etc. were suggested or required. The lack of ground floor activation across the bulk of the 300′ long structure was brought up, but because the zoning code itself was re-written at the 11th hour to accommodate this project, the applicants design is within those guidelines, and therefore there was nothing compelling them to do anything other than what they wanted and what they convinced zoning staff to allow for them.
Co-Chair Mike Mushak spoke at length about the industrial history of East Norwalk (including a lecture about the former trolley system) but focused on past City projects that were vehemently opposed by ENNA and other Neighborhood Associations – he concluded that residents’ concerns were ultimately unfounded (though no post-occupancy impacts analysis have ever been done to the best of our knowledge). It is worth noting that Commissioner Mushak continued his vitriolic attacks against ENNA and East Norwalk residents, even going so far at the end of the evening as to accuse us and those of you at the 2nd hearing of intimidating any potential proponents of the plan.
There are many more highlights of interest and we’re hopeful to provide more insight after re-watching the video, and then we can post some of the more important and often jaw-dropping take-aways. In the meantime, ENNA today requested both the draft and final versions of the “Resolution to Approve” and the Approval Conditions so we can post them for residents to read (we were denied access to these prior to the hearing, which may be a violation of Freedom of Information statute). It is not clear at this point if P&Z staff also prepared a Resolution to Deny …..
We also requested another document that was not made public prior to the hearing which was a Resolution regarding ENNA’s filing for Intervenor status – it stated the Commission “…does not believe that the application as submitted will have the effect of unreasonably polluting, impairing or destroying the public trust in the air, water, or other natural resource of the state.” This resolution passed on a 7-1 vote with Mrs. Tabachneck voting No.
The full meeting can be viewed below
