Editor’s note: This article has been updated to correct the original inaccurate report that the P&Z vote was delayed.
By Gretchen Webster
WESTPORT — The Planning and Zoning commission, after a second review, this week approved a Coastal Area Management plan for the Inn at Longshore — after receiving assurances the town-owned inn will fully comply with Americans with Disabilities Act regulations, including an elevator, ramps and accessible bathrooms.
To accommodate those revisions, work will be delayed and is expected to get underway in August, instead of next month as was planned, Peter Romano of Landtech consultants, told the Planning and Zoning Commission this week.
P&Z members and the inn’s developers plan a joint work session in January to review the updated plans, it was decided after the commissioners spent an hour Monday discussing their discomfort with revisions to the approved plan. The project had been modified from the 8-24 land use plan they originally approved in May, which included an elevator. The elevator was subsequently dropped from those plans because of its cost, as overall expenses for the project ballooned above initial estimates, the developers had said.
A Nov. 27 letter that Michael Ryan, managing partner of Longshore Hospitality, the inn lessee planning the renovations, sent to the P&Z promises an elevator will be restored to the project. However, all six commission members wondered about the point of approving 8-24 municipal land-use reports if they are not followed.
“I’m not super comfortable, I’ll be honest,” commission member Neil Cohn told the developers. “We approved something and hoped to see it would be what we originally approved under the 8-24.”
“What can we put in the resolution to assure us that that ADA compliance includes the elevator?” asked commission member Michael Calise.
And member Amy Wistreich said that not only does an elevator need to be included in the plans, but bathrooms should comply with accessibility guidelines and ramps are needed at both inside and outside steps.
The applicant assured the commission the plans do include completely compliant bathrooms and ramps. And a new design would be drawn up including a specific location in the building for an elevator, although the revisions may cause elimination of several guest rooms at the inn.
In discussing the application, several commissioners were adamant the plan reflect the elements approved in the 8-24 report, particularly since Longshore Hospitality will operate the inn under a 30-year lease.
Town Attorney Ira Bloom, who joined the P&Z meeting on Zoom, said that he had met with Ryan, Romano and First Selectwomen Jennifer Tooker, and felt certain that an elevator would be restored to the renovation project as the developers promise.
“I don’t think the focus should be on the 8-24 any longer. It’s been rectified,” Bloom said. “You have a CAM application before you and that’s what you should act upon. You have a written commitment that they’ll put in the elevator.”
Planning and Zoning Director Michelle Perillie also told commissioners there are protections in place to ensure the plans approved by the P&Z are followed. Before a zoning permit is issued there would be many reviews of the project by various town officials to make sure they comply, she said.
And there are safeguards in the lease Longshore Hospitality has with the town, Bloom added. “The lease spells out a number of things that they have to do with the facility. … The lease is the governing document.”
In the end, before the P&Z voted on the CAM application, Romano suggested meeting again to review the revised plans to ensure P&Z members’ satisfaction.
“Suppose we come back in the middle of January to a work session … show the plans for the elevator … to be totally transparent on what’s going on there,” he said.
With assurances that the planned revisions would “honor the intentions of the 8-24” report, the P&Z voted unanimously to approve the CAM application.
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.
There is a minor correction here. With assurances from Michael Ryan of Longshore Hospitality and our Town Attorney Ira Bloom, the P&Z commission agreed to vote on the CAM and approve it so the project can move forward expeditiously.
Hardly a minor correction Commissioner Cohn .
So in other words no consequences for their behavior and full steam ahead. With assurances from the very tenant who tried to screw over ADA . But got caught with his panties around his ankles. Now it’s all transparency ? I mean please !
What A shame, it did seem the article was too good to be true.
I suggest anybody in town who sits on the side of ADA watch this like a hawk as it progresses.
The correction was simply that the initial iteration of the article had missed that we did ultimately vote on and approve the CAM. That has been corrected.
Nothing like making skullduggery and mal intention, “bulletproof” so to speak.