Editor’s note: The following letter was written to Planning and Zoning Commission members, and submitted to the Westport Journal for publication.

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P&Z Commissioners:

Thank you for allowing my comments. In an earlier note, I explained my advocacy for the neighbors of 13 Hyde Lane, the Westport Community Gardens and Long Lots Preserve. 

In short, I ask you to prevent defacement of 13 Hyde Lane abutting neighbor properties, and SAVE THE GARDENS by rejecting all or part of the proposal outlined in the §8-24 application for 13 Hyde Lane.

I am requesting that the Planning and Zoning Commission reject the §8-24 Municipal Improvement for 13 Hyde Lane or perhaps better, bifurcate the application to separate the school project from pork-barrel Parks and Rec projects. If in your purview, I also suggest you prohibit the use of any private roadways, such as Bauer Place Extension, for construction or town uses.  

I do believe the town needs to remediate the Long Lots Elementary School, but the project as proposed is flawed beyond the pale — largely attributable to:

• Lack of transparency.

• Lack of expertise on the committee.

• Lack of checks-and-balances in the process to date.

• Failure to engage affected parties.

• Lack of proper review of Board of Education specifications.

• Absolutely NO ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STUDY.

• Conflict with the town’s Plan of Conservation and Development (POCD).

• Blatant pork-barreling attempt to ameliorate Parks and Recreation facilities inappropriately within the scope of a school project.

• Lack of due diligence on appropriate uses of a very problematic parcel of land.

At a minimum, I urge the commissioners to remove Terrace 1 completely from the §8-24 report or bifurcate all plans related to Terrace 1 and the Parks and Recreation amenities that have been coupled into the project. In my opinion, the premature staging proposals were devised out of sequence and without considering all legitimate alternatives — solely to make a case that bifurcation is not possible.  

There has been no genuine consideration given to leaving Terrace 1 out of the equation to retain the integrity of the neighborhood properties or to preserve rare municipal green space (the community gardens and LL Native Preserve). This commission has previously deemed the community gardens as a good use of the parcel on which it sits, and wholly consistent with the POCD.

FAILURE TO ENGAGE KEY PARTIES

The appointed LLS Building Committee has not appropriately engaged key parties affected by the project. These parties include the abutting neighbors most importantly, the Westport Community Gardens members and Sustainable Westport to name a few.  Neighbors have not been officially consulted or even notified until the Planning and Zoning Commission mailing last week. The committee’s only claim to engagement is that members of the public attended their meetings — but only after it was INADVERTENTLY DISCOVERED in late June 2023 that the scope of the project went well beyond a school building. Board of Ed deliberations made no mention of this either, and BOE members appeared surprised by the Terrace 1 use.  

It is telling to note that less than a month on the job, in May 2023, and before neighbors and the WCG were aware of plans to use Terrace 1, the Svigal’s + Partners architectural consultant Marissa Mead discovered these areas adjacent to the school during her research.  

She asked in an email: “Does the Committee anticipate the group would find any project on the site problematic.” The records produced in the FOIA would indicate there was no written response to her question.

LACK OF TRANSPARENCY

The committee intentionally withheld information about using Terrace 1 to rebuild a multi-sport complex.  Though the public was aware of a school rebuilding project, there was no thought given — or information provided — that Terrace 1 would be involved.  Interested parties “discovered” this intent in late June 2023 and had to forcibly insert themselves into the process, demanding an opportunity to address the committee at its meetings. The committee argues that it met its transparency obligations by noticing its meetings (in one case, improperly). 

There was a failure to publicly post relevant documents in a timely manner.

• Feasibility study documents being actively discussed at public meetings had to be FOIA’d before a redacted version was released to me. All schematics showing use of Terrace 1 as sports fields were redacted. The committee repeatedly told meeting participants, “Nothing has been decided,” and they were just “Moving boxes around on a piece of paper.” Clearly, their intent was to obfuscate the real plan, as evidenced by the pronouncement of the P&R director when a news report finally confirmed the Terrace 1 plan: “Guess they got the news.”

• As the committee began to roll out its Concept C recommended plan that would fully consume Terrace 1, the Committee covertly sought a staging plan a year early to support their proposal.  The staging plan was drawn up over time, with the most recent drafted in August 2023.  That plan was not released publicly until presented to the Board of Finance on Dec. 8, 2023 — despite multiple FOIA requests for all documents (some still unfulfilled).

ENGAGING IRRELEVANT PARTIES

The Westport Parks and Recreation Department, as well as various private sports leagues, have been included in deliberations and engaged to consult on the design of sports fields that are now integrated into the project. League officials were even invited to site walks in early July, and later that same day new schematics of ballfields were delivered to the LLSBC chair from Parks and Rec. I have FOIA’d P&R and LLSBC email records documenting this.

PRIOR PZC DETERMINATIONS

A Town Attorney’s memo dated April 26, 2022, summarized the various PZC history of permits and §8-24 applications related to uses of what is now called Terrace 1. Included was the following: On Feb. 11, 2010, “… the P&Z issued a Special Permit/Site Plan at the request of Parks and Recreation Department for the expansion of the community gardens, stating that ‘The Commission finds that the use of this site for the Community Garden, instead of the previously proposed use for athletic fields, remains in keeping with the 2007 POCD’.”

And “The Westport Community Gardens was opened in 2006, but the playing fields were never officially proposed to the P&Z, and when the Westport Community Gardens was expanded in 2010, the P&Z’s finding implied that approval of the expansion precluded the use of the remaining portion of the 4.3 acres for ball fields, whether for education of community purposes.”

STAGING MOUNDS OF CRAP

The staging proposal released just days ago places tons and tons of fill dirt and construction debris on top of the existing gardens, within feet of neighbors. This is sickening to me, and it would destroy the community gardens altogether. The 2,000 truckloads of this crap is proposed to be in place for up to two years, after which a multisport complex will be constructed. There are houses on two sides of the Terrace 1 property line backing up to the staging dump.  

In addition to land, air and water pollution possibilities from this disaster, these neighbors have flooding issues.  Many have young children attending Long Lots Elementary; other neighbors are elderly. It is utterly unthinkable that the committee is contemplating such a draconian rape of the land and the neighbors’ personal space.

DRAINAGE, DRAINAGE, DRAINAGE

There are severe drainage issues on the property, including in the gardens area and neighbors on Old Orchard and Bauer Place. No environmental impact study has been done and the neighbors have not been polled on possible issues. A clay athletic field will exacerbate the situation … near and far since it is upstream on Muddy Brook. Harvest Commons Condos downstream experience significant flooding problems.  The committee says, “Don’t worry, we’ll take care of it.”  Do you believe them?

MUNICIPAL GREEN SPACE

Westport has minimal open and passive green space.  We have one community garden. It has been co-located at 13 Hyde Lane for about 20 years. Every improvement on that land in terms of soil, structures and native plantings have been done by the WCG on a volunteer basis at no cost to the town. The town provides nonpotable water service during the growing season, an occasional truckload of wood chips, and a background check each year on our members. It is a pollinator pathway; chemical pesticides are prohibited in the gardens. 

ADMINISTRATION PROMISES FOR NEW GARDEN LAND

The administration has promised a new garden site at Baron’s South “paid for by the town,” ready for the planting season in spring 2024. This is unproved, unrealistic, and does not consider the complex process needed to designate a new community gardens land use.  

Further, there is no plan whatsoever as to how, when, who, and how much for such a promise. No assessment of the current garden has been made; no real budget established, and no new venue approved. I researched some costs to build a basic community garden, and stopped counting at $1.3 million, not including site remediation. Finally, you cannot just “move” a habitat and soil that has been cultivated for gardening over two decades. 

P&R CIRCUMVENTING A NEEDS ASSESSMENT

I believe Parks and Rec and the committee are circumventing a fulsome process to determine the true needs for sports fields and their locations. There are many areas of town with active recreational space. In these last few months, I’ve learned that demand for youth field sports seems to outweigh the town’s ability to provide facilities, or the town’s ability to AFFORD facilities. Perhaps that is a fact that needs to be accepted. 

I’m told new open space is nonexistent in Westport. That scares me. Could private versus municipal facilities be the answer? This is beyond my pay grade but perhaps PZC will consider this in the future. Now is not the time to rush into a poor land-use decision.

Of the recreational spaces in the town, there are at least 21 baseball/softball fields, some of which are also used for soccer, lacrosse, rugby, etc. It has also come to my attention that the town fields are often in poor condition and, in some cases, unsafe conditions. I would like to know whether the capacity for these youth sports activities could be increased by improving  or upgrading existing athletic fields other than the rarely used Long Lots baseball field (the soccer fields are used for small kids). My information on the condition of the fields comes from FOIA’d documents in which sports league officials are complaining to Parks and Rec and the selectwoman about them and even offering to help pay to improve field conditions.  

Clearly, the proposed athletic fields for the Long Lots project are not part of the BOE specifications and are not intended for use by the K-5 students of that school.

Further, the logic that the town wishes to replace just what is already onsite, is insulting. The recommended proposal seeks not only a new larger supersized multisport field on Terrace 1, but the addition of additional amenities such as dugouts, bleachers, concessions, batter’s cages, pitchers’ bullpens, scoreboards … and a future threat of lights. All within feet of neighbors on Bauer Place and Old Orchard.

SCHOOL ENROLLMENT DATA AND SCHOOL SIZE

As for the size of the Long Lots school, new enrollment data and a much-delayed redistricting of elementary students give me cause for concern that capacity issues need to be sorted before the largest elementary school in Fairfield County is approved.  

The building site is very problematic, with grading, water, traffic and parking issues all huge problems. As this relates to land use, it seems enrollment would be fully vetted DISTRICTWIDE before approving such a supersized school (and then squeezing in supersized sports fields) on land that will just not accommodate such aggressive use.

Toni Simonetti

Westport