By Thane Grauel

WESTPORT — Mark Lazar, the renter of a Hiawatha Lane Extension home who has refused to leave to make way for a 157-apartment project by Summit Saugatuck LLC, has been ordered to vacate the premises.

The June 9 ruling by Norwalk Housing Court Judge Walter Michael Spader Jr. gave Lazar five business days to leave, or request a stay.

Lazar’s lawyer, Abram J. Heisler of Norwalk, has filed an appeal.

“You may be evicted from the premises named in the complaint and occupied by you after 5 days from the Date of Judgement shown above,” the court notice states. 

It says he can request a stay of up to six months.

The ruling, and appeal, are just the latest legal actions involving the modest but close-knit middle-class neighborhood wedged between Interstate 95, the Metro-North Railroad tracks, Saugatuck Avenue and the Norwalk city line.

Summit Saugatuck, after almost two decades of waging a battle to build the apartments, earlier this month appeared to get final approval to move forward when a Superior Court judge rejected a suit neighbors’ filed against the project.

The latest version of the plan, approved last July in a court-stipulated settlement between town officials and the developer, calls for constructing three apartment buildings, with 30 percent of the units deed-restricted as “affordable.”

Plans for the development, ostensibly proposed to provide more affordable housing in town, were filed under the state’s 8-30g legislation. 

The law gives developers leverage in municipalities without enough affordable housing stock to meet a 10 percent threshold. The irony is that it tears apart one of the last affordable neighborhoods in this very wealthy suburb, in the name of affordable housing. 

In the fall, the Historic District Commission recognized the unique nature of the neighborhood, and denied Summit’s request to demolish several houses without the requisite six-month delay. It noted the mid-century architecture of the ranches, and their clustering.

One of those houses is the one Lazar rents.

The timer has run out on that demolition delay. Court cases — Lazar’s and one brought by neighbors insisting some of the properties were deed-restricted as single-family homes — plod along.

“Save Old Saugatuck” neighborhood plaintiffs, who this month lost their challenge, are raising money in an attempt to file an appeal.

Meanwhile, Lazar wasn’t home Wednesday when the Westport Journal stopped by for comment.

Heisler, his lawyer, could not be reached. He previously said he does not comment on pending litigation.

A demolition sign was taped to a vehicle in Lazar’s driveway. Modifications to the sign made his feelings clear.