By Gretchen Webster

WESTPORT — If only the town purchased the small riverfront property at 79 Riverside Ave. — a legal building lot since 1922 — when it’s previously been on the market. 

That’s what neighbors and town officials told the Planning and Zoning Commission on Monday as debate continued over plans to build a house on the 0.09-acre sliver of land fronting on the Saugatuck River and adjacent to the town’s small Eloise A. Ray Park.

But the town did not buy the property, as was proposed in the past, and Lucien Vita did.

Now, Vita told the P&Z, he has a legal right to put a house on the environmentally sensitive site, and P&Z Director Mary Young agreed.

The commission, however, voted 3 to 2 to postpone a decision on whether to accept or reject the application to build the single-family house for two weeks until its next scheduled meeting Oct. 7.

Commission members chose to wait after hearing concerns from several speakers, including a few town officials, who said the town should have bought the land years ago. 

They included:

• Chris Tait, a District 1 Representative Town Meeting member, who said, “I’m completely surprised that someone would buy that postage stamp. But we had the opportunity to buy it and we didn’t and that is our fault.”
• David Floyd, Parks and Recreation Commission chairman, who was concerned that during floods or a full moon, water from the property would flow into Eloise A. Ray Park and that eventually “the property’s private owner would take over part of the park.”
• Matthew Mandell, a District 1 RTM member and chairman of its Planning and Zoning Committee, said, “It kills me that we had the opportunity to buy it and make it open space and we didn’t.” He told the P&Z that because a town-owned park is next door, “You are the neighbors, the town of Westport is the neighbors,” and because the P&Z is considering a Coastal Site Plan application for the property, the town has a right to consider the impact on the park if a house is built there. “The park is part of the coastal resource of the area,” he said.
• Louis Mall, a District 2 RTM member, criticized the town’s committee established to help acquire properties for open space and other municipal purposes, saying, “We need new people in charge of acquisition of town properties … They failed us dramatically —  everybody is so bitter about this.”

And neighbors complained, too, including three members of the Tirreno family, of 137 Riverside Ave., who objected to removal of a large oak tree where bald eagles and osprey have been sighted.

They also said that flooding on the site is already destroying natural habitat, and that migratory waterfowl, including some endangered species, have been seen there. “The damage from this construction cannot be overstated,” Charles Tirreno said.

The application had been withdrawn from P&Z consideration in February when Vita was advised the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection was concerned that the plan’s flood-and-erosion control measures did not meet requirements of the Coastal Management Act. 

On Monday, Vita showed the P&Z new plans that he said had been approved by DEEP. The town’s Flood and Erosion Control Board and Conservation Commission also have approved the revised plans. 

The proposal now includes redesigned retaining walls on the riverfront side of the property, removal of a proposed walk-out basement in the original plan, a pump system for the basement if flooding occurs, and a driveway constructed to act as a water-detention system.

A “more robust” upgraded landscaping plan includes planting 200 tidal wetland plants and 160 upland buffer plants, Vita said. 

After P&Z Chairman Paul Lebowitz said, “We don’t want to see people parking at Assumption Church” or “four dump trucks parked along Riverside Avenue” during the construction project, Vita and engineer Bryan Nesteriak, of B&B Engineering, said that trucks and construction vehicles would be strictly controlled. There would be no more than one truck on the small property or anywhere near the site during construction, they said.

Vita said rumors that adjacent Eloise A. Ray Park would be used as a staging area during construction are not true. “We have absolutely no intention of using the park,” he said.

Another concern of P&Z members and the public was how the town park would be shielded from the private property. Many asked for an 8-foot-tall fence, and Vita agreed not only to install a fence, but to add plantings on the park side of the fence as well as along his side of the fence.

Before the P&Z was ready to vote on the application, Mandell said that because only five members of the seven-member commission were in attendance, a vote Monday would not represent the majority of the commission. 

Lebowitz noted, however, that there was a quorum of the commission present and the vote would be valid.

But after commission member Michael Calise asked that the vote be postponed until the next meeting because he wanted more time to examine the application, commission members Amy Wistreich and Breanne Injeski voted with Calise to continue the hearing. Lebowitz and John Bolton voted against the postponement.

“A number of issues have been brought up tonight that need to be considered,” Calise said. “It’s a very sensitive site.”

Freelance writer Gretchen Webster, a Fairfield County journalist for many years, was editor of the Fairfield Minuteman and has taught journalism at New York and Southern Connecticut State universities.