By Gretchen Webster

WESTPORT — Two applicants got a scolding Tuesday from the Zoning Board of Appeals for failing to follow local zoning procedures.

One of the groups, Chabad Lubavitch of Westport, won reluctant approval of its request to install dumpsters after a months-long saga.

The representative for Connecticut Children’s Specialty Care Center withdrew its application, on the advice of board members, who said the plan violated regulations with a brightly lit sign installed in the wrong place on its building at 191 Post Road West.

Harsh diagnosis for children’s medical group

“We didn’t approve this and there is a sign up,” ZBA Chairman Jim Ezzes said of the Connecticut Children’s application. “Why did you put this up? We haven’t granted this variance.” 

Ezzes was objecting to a sign installed, without approval, exceeding height and brightness regulations.

“That sign must have been in the works for months,” said ZBA member Josh Newman. He scolded the applicant for not getting approval at a previous ZBA meeting, and then installing the sign anyway in time for the center’s grand opening. 

“Come hell or high water you were going to do it,” he told the center’s representative.

Representing the Connecticut Children’s Specialty Care Center, Lawrin Rosen of Art Effects, apologized, saying that he was not aware the sign had been installed at the top of the building. Rosen had appeared at the ZBA’s December meeting where no vote was taken because not enough members were present.

Ezzes apologized “for the inconvenience that we couldn’t vote that evening,” but said it was clear that since the large, expensive sign was installed two days after the December meeting, it was made long before it was even proposed to the ZBA.

After Rosen told ZBA members that he felt as though he was facing “a group of alligators,” Ezzes suggested that he withdraw the application, redesign the sign according to regulations and bring a revised application directly to the Planning and Zoning Commission.

“If you conformed to our zoning regulations, you wouldn’t be here,” Ezzes said.

The ZBA meets with property owners and developers only when a variance is needed from zoning regulations because of some kind of hardship. There is no hardship in the Connecticut Children’s case, Ezzes said. 

Ezzes and several members of the ZBA stressed that their disapproval of the way zoning regulations were disregarded did not mean that they do not respect Connecticut Children’s, which has an alliance with Hartford HealthCare and Nuvance.

Chabad dumpster saga ends … with reservations

That was also true for Chabad Lubavitch of Westport, a religious organization, which drew criticism from the ZBA on Tuesday.

Chabad Lubavitch, represented by former P&Z Chairwoman Cathy Walsh, came back to the ZBA for the third time in one year, to settle the score on where to locate dumpsters on its property at 79 Newtown Turnpike, the location of the former Three Bears Restaurant. 

As with “Connecticut’s Children,” the ZBA’s complaint was that Chabad made plans and took action without appropriate approvals, appealing to the ZBA for approval after the fact.

“You go ahead and do this stuff, and then you come to us,” Ezzes said to Walsh. 

Chabad built a playground before it was approved, built a porch and installed dumpsters within required setbacks without ZBA approval.

Walsh explained that after violence had occurred elsewhere in the U.S. at Jewish synagogues, Westport’s Chabad leaders decided to re-evaluate the security around the building, which affected where trash bins were relocated. 

ZBA members said they agreed that safety was important, but they believed the reason the location of the dumpsters was changed without approval was for convenience and not safety. They were moved closer to the kitchen. 

Plus, a playground was installed on the Chabad property in the same location where the dumpsters were supposed to go under a previous ZBA decision.

“We’ve been backed into a corner,” said ZBA member Michelle Hopson. “All of the process was skipped. Yes, it’s for the children and it’s for a good cause,” but there are reasons the process should be followed, she said, including safety protocols.

“I’m right in the middle,” about whether or not to approve Chabad’s application for the dumpsters, she said.

But if the dumpsters were moved to where they really belong, taking space in the parking lot on the other side of the building, the Chabad staff would suffer, board members agreed.

“The decision makers have skirted the process,” Newman said. “Senior leadership dropped the ball not once, but twice … the people who are going to end up paying for this will be the workers in the kitchen,” who will have to carry garbage from one side of the building to the other.

Board member Amy Wistreich added that having garbage trucks drive in and out of the parking lot where children are dropped off for preschool would also be dangerous “from a public safety point.”

Despite their reservations, ZBA members then voted unanimously to approve the dumpster location near the kitchen as proposed by Chabad.

Plans for Northgate house approved

The ZBA also voted unanimously to accept a revised plan for improvements on a property at 3 Northgate owned by Lina Ochoa and Carlos Botero. 

Variances were requested to add entry steps for the house and two air-conditioning units into setback areas on the property.

The property is small, very steep and full of ledge, and the house on the property was built in 1829 and should not be disturbed, creating a hardship for the owners, Ezzes told the board. “This is a difficult, difficult property to say the least,” he said.

The property owners previously had applied to the ZBA for approval of several variances and were asked to remove two patios and a propane tank that encroached into town setbacks. “They did what we asked last time,” Ezzes said. “They listened to us.”

Although there was some concern about the air-conditioning units within town setbacks, the units were unobtrusive the members agreed, and the board voted to approve the variances.

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.