By Gretchen Webster

WESTPORT — A plan to modify a house to accommodate a woman with physical impairment came back to the Zoning Board of Appeals on Tuesday, but still failed to win the board’s approval. 

The owners, Eliot and Bobbi Essagof of 9 Island Way, wanted to add an elevator from the garage to the top of the home to accommodate Bobbi Essagof’s needs, as well as a small pool for her physical therapy. 

The couple’s application was initially reviewed by the ZBA on July 12, and was brought back Tuesday, but the plan to install the elevator again fell short.

“We’ve never had an application that requested a third story,” ZBA Chairman James Ezzes told the Essagofs on July 12. “In all these years [he’s been on the board] we’ve given just two height variances.”

“Have some compassion,” Eliot Essagof said in response at the earlier meeting. “This is our home … I just want to make a comfortable place for Mrs. Essagof.” 

Their application also requested variances for lot coverage and setback requirements so that they could redesign the front entrance of the house to be more accessible, and add a small pool, as well as the elevator. 

The lot is already non-conforming, Assistant Town Planner Michelle Perillie told the ZBA, and variances are required to remodel the house. She also reported that several of Bobbi Essagof’s doctors had written to the board on the necessity for health-related modifications to the home. Several neighbors of the couple also wrote letters in favor of the project.

The issue for ZBA members at both meetings, however, was that the remodeling plan would raise the roof seven feet over the height limit, creating a third story to the house — creating the need for a variance to building height regulations. A room at the top also would be included, in addition to space for the elevator access.

“We understand the need,” Ezzes said. But “I can’t support the [rooftop] room. I don’t see the hardship for that.” 

Several ZBA members suggested that if the basic design was changed from a flat roof to a more standard pitched-style roof, there would be space at the top of the house for an elevator and the additional room without exceeding height limits. 

The flat roof design is “boxy,” they said, and a pitched roof would add the space the couple wants and still conform with height requirements, eliminating the need for them to return to the ZBA again for a variance.

“It was 100 percent a design choice to make it a boxy house,” board member Josh Newman commented. “I’d love to see them come back to redo the plans with a pitched roof.”

Board member Elizabeth Wong agreed. “With a pitched roof, it would conform,” she said. “This is a self-created hardship.”

Another factor that made the Essagofs’ application for a variance more complex is that if the height variance were to be granted, it would be based on the current occupants’ needs related to mobility problems, and would not pertain to owners of the house in the future.

“The next owners would have to bring the height down. They would have to get rid of the whole structure,” ZBA member Michelle Hopson said. 

The ZBA members, saying they were sensitive to the needs of the couple, approved variances allowing the pool and redesigned front entrance, but again did not approve a height variance for the elevator and rooftop room.

Chabad playground: Another partial approval

 An application by Chabad Lubavitch of Westport for a variance to allow playground equipment to remain within a setback area, and to remove a condition requiring dumpsters to be fenced in, also won only partial approval from the ZBA on Tuesday. 

The playground set can stay where it is, the panel voted, but the dumpsters must be moved and screened with a fence. 

“Those dumpsters are very unsightly — those dumpsters are terrible,” member Jacqueline Masumian said.

The Chabad property at 79 Newtown Turnpike is the former site of the Three Bears Restaurant. 

The religious organization, which purchased the property in 2013, applied to the Planning and Zoning Commission in June to add a 35-student day-care facility. 

The building is also used for religious services, Hebrew school and adult education.

Two applications praised

The board on Tuesdayalso approved an application from Homes with Hope to build two dormers on the Gillespie Center homeless shelter and food bank at 45 Jesup Road.

The dormer would provide room for the staff to have office space separated from shelter residents to ease COVID concerns, and to allow dumb waiters to be installed to help transport meals from the upper to lower floors without staff having to carry food down the stairs, Helen McAlinden, president of Homes with Hope, told the panel.

The ZBA, citing the important resources Homes with Hope provides for the town, approved the application unanimously.

Also approved unanimously was a plan to extend a front porch on a house at 52 Morningside Drive South. 

The house, built in 1787, was praised for its beauty and the care provided by its owners over the years. 

The home’s new owners, Jordan and Juliana Bulger, “are willing to breathe new life into this antique structure,” said ZBA Chairman Ezzes. 

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.