By Gretchen Webster

WESTPORT — A 75-foot-long fieldstone wall on Hillspoint Road that has encroached on the town’s right-of-way for decades, is being scrutinized for possible removal to make way for a new sidewalk in the beach area neighborhood.

David and Gwen Baker, owners of the property at 174 Hillspoint Road, have petitioned the Board of Selectwomen for a variance allowing them to keep a stone fence on the property they acquired last year to build “their dream house,” said Bryan Nesteriak of B&B Engineering, representing the owners at Wednesday’s selectwomen’s meeting.

To make way for the new home, the owners plan to demolish the existing house, built in 1968, and remove one of the property’s two driveways, but keep the three-foot-high stone wall at the front of the property.

However, the wall, added to the property in the 1980s, encroaches onto the public right-of-way.

“The Bakers wish for this stone wall to remain,” Nesteriak said. “Every town department has no objection, except for the DPW [Department of Public Works].”

Town public works officials have been concerned about the location of the wall for years, Keith Wilberg, an engineer in the DPW, told the selectwomen. 

And if the stone wall could interfere with installing a new sidewalk along that portion of Hillspoint Road, it will have to be moved back onto the Bakers’ property or be taken down, he said.

“The town has wanted to get rid of this wall for a long time,” Wilberg said. “We’re not against the wall, but put it behind your property line.”

The town has a grant to build a new sidewalk on that section of Hillspoint Road, and the project is already in the design stage, he said. 

The stone wall encroaches onto the narrowest part of the town’s right-of-way through that area, which could require that it be moved to make way for the new sidewalk.

Whenever an encroachment waiver is requested for a wall, fence, driveway or other structure that stands on town property, the Department of Public Works takes the opportunity to consider correcting that violation even if it has existed for years, Wilberg said. Some encroaching structures may have been built before current setback regulations were in place. 

If a waiver is granted for an encroachment on town property, the private property owner must sign a hold harmless agreement with the town and provide liability insurance covering the area in question.

Selectwoman Andrea Moore said that making a decision on whether to grant the waiver to allow the wall to remain where it was “seems premature.” 

She asked for a decision on the waiver application to be postponed until the design phase for the new sidewalk is complete, which Wilberg estimated would be in two or three weeks.

Selectwoman Candice Savin also requested that the board be informed of the issues the town has had with the wall’s location in the past. “It would be important to find out the history of problems with the wall,” before acting on the waiver, she said.

The selectwomen decided to postpone a vote on the waiver until the plans for the sidewalk project are complete and they have a history of the town’s concerns about the stone wall’s current location.

Freelance writer Gretchen Webster, a Fairfield County journalist and journalism teacher for many years, was editor of the Fairfield Minuteman newspaper for 10 years and currently teaches journalism at Southern Connecticut State University.