By John Schwing
WESTPORT — Volleys over the Fairfield County Hunt Club’s efforts to expand racquet sports facilities, launched in 2023, remain in play.
The latest proposal, calling for construction of a 22,000-square-foot building on club property at 174 Long Lots Road to house tennis and squash courts, was put on hold Monday until members of the Planning and Zoning Commission tour the site.
Commissioners agreed to take a field trip to the location — where dimensions and height of the proposed structure will be staked out — at the suggestion of several neighbors, who criticized the facility’s size, proximity to their homes and noise they fear it might generate.
It follows an October 2023 decision by club officials to withdraw an application to construct outdoor pickleball courts on the same site, a plan that sparked significant opposition from neighbors over the course of several P&Z public hearings.
A “journey” from pickleball controversy
The latest plan for an indoor racquet sports building, according to John Fallon, the hunt club’s lawyer, evolved as the result of “a journey” from the original pickleball plans. It is designed, he said, to address neighbors’ concerns about noise that swamped the earlier proposal.
Fallon outlined details of the new application a second time for the commission, whose April 7 meeting was “Zoom-bombed” by hackers in the middle of his initial presentation. (There were no similar disruptions during Monday night’s online meeting.)
The club previously organized an informational meeting to share details of the new plan with neighbors, and Fallon said they had a “positive” reaction to the revised project. The application, he added, has already been approved by the Conservation Commission, Flood and Erosion Control Board and Architectural Review Board.
If the application wins P&Z approval, Fallon said, the club does not plan to increase its membership, which currently stands at about 200 families, 60 percent of whom live in Westport.
The proposed structure complies with all required zoning setbacks and does not need any variances, Fallon said. It located on a site on the hunt club’s 40-acre property that he said would not cause “disruption in any way” to neighbors.
The project, he said, would be a “win-win” for both the club and the neighborhood.
The new building would stand about 33 feet tall, and was designed to be a permanent structure in keeping with the appearance of the club’s other buildings rather than an “air-supported” dome or fabric structure housing the courts, according to project architect Mike Kozlowski of Claris Build-Design. It would encompass two tennis courts, four squash courts, a pro shop, locker rooms and rest rooms.
Neighbors: It’s too big, too close
Several residents of Hunt Club Lane, the street closest to the proposed building’s location, spoke at Monday’s hearing and sharply disagreed with Fallon’s assertion that the building would have no adverse impact on their properties.
Jon Grover described the project as a “huge sports complex” that would loom “too close” to a residential neighborhood. It would be the “tallest building” on the hunt club’s property, he said, and suggested it be relocated to a site farther from abutting homes.
Despite the building’s size, Grover noted, the club’s existing racquetball courts would remain outdoors and not within the new facilities.
Cristina Ferrari repeated Grover’s concern about the “huge” building, and indicated the architectural renderings of the structure shown to the P&Z are misleading since they do not depict how close neighboring homes are to the site.
Brendon Fields, a neighbor and hunt club member, said the new building — to be constructed alongside two other existing structures on the property — together would constitute a “huge” mass resembling “aircraft hangars” as seen from the neighborhood.
From the neighbors’ perspective, the building would appear even higher than the proposed 30-plus feet, Fields said, because it would be constructed on an elevated location.
Lauren Karpf, a Hunt Club Lane resident and Representative Town Meeting member from District 7, echoed neighbors’ concerns about how the project renderings fail to show the building would be “right on top” of nearby homes.
She appreciated that hunt club officials tried to address concerns neighbors had about outdoor pickleball courts, but added the size of the proposed building exceeds reasonable expectations.
Similar sentiments were expressed by neighbor Lee Waldman, who like the others, urged commission members to schedule a field trip to the property.
Fallon responded that the plan to build indoor courts was designed in response to earlier complaints about outdoor pickleball courts. Emails sent to the P&Z supporting the project and the relatively few critics at Monday’s meeting, he said, were evidence that the wider neighborhood has no problem with the proposal.
He also questioned the validity of neighbors’ complaints about views of the structure and potential noise it might generate, since the closest of them live at least several hundred feet away.
But, Fallon agreed, a field trip by the commissioners to the site would help them make an informed decision “in the context of the history here and in the context of the facts.”
Commission members then voted unanimously to conduct a site visit later this month. After that, they aim to close the hearing and vote on the application at a meeting in May.
John Schwing, consulting editor of the Westport Journal, has held senior editorial and writing posts at southwestern Connecticut media outlets for four decades. Learn more about us here.
The Fairfield Hunt Club was established at their current and only location in the 1920s. Adjoining neighbors on Hunt Club Lane built or purchased their homes well after that, and after several iterations of the Club.
I am not a member of the private club nor am I an immediate neighbor. So why do I have an interest in this?
I care deeply about the loss of our only Community Garden, and its surrounding well curated native preserve. I care about the neighbors who adjoin this area and who fought bravely to preserve these beautiful open green spaces. When all was lost due in part to the loud voices from Hunt Club Lane, several WCG adjoining neighbors put their house up for sale and moved.
Back to the Hunt Club. Some of the outspoken neighbors here are the very same who spoke aggressively to remove our community garden and native preserve that buffers several residences by mere 20 feet— to replace it with a Parks and Recreation turfed and lighted regulation sized multipurpose/soccer field.
These “not in my backyard” Hunt Club Lane residents include RTM member Lauren Karpf, chief among the advocates to build a turfed field within mere feet of adjoining neighbors on Bauer Place, Hyde Lane and Old Orchard.
Why are her Hunt Club constituents more important than those on Bauer Place, Old Orchard or Hyde Lane constituents?
This is the second go-round for a NIMBY protest to be heard by the Planning and Zoning Commission over the Hunt Club plans.
The Hunt Club has acted in good faith to address their concerns, switching from outdoor courts to an indoor racquet facility.
The Hunt Club has been a good and longstanding neighbor in Westport. It has acted in good faith to address neighbor concerns and continues to do so. It served as good example for other applicants soon to come before the PZC.
“When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.”
John Muir
Any concern by the neighbors regarding what looks like expansion of Polo with the newly registered FCHC Hamlet Polo LLC? This will surely add more activity and noise in an otherwise serene neighborhood.