Neighbors Attack Condominium Proposal

A proposal to build a 51-unit, age-restricted condominium ran into fierce opposition Wednesday from neighbors who said it would cause traffic hazards and environmental problems.

The neighbors grew emotional at several points, shouting angry comments at the applicant’s representatives.

Early in the public hearing, Planning & Zoning Commission Chairman Gene Ruocco traded angry barbs with former Mayor Joe Maturo. They accused each other of playing politics.

Ruocco is also the East Haven Democratic Town Committee chairman, and Maturo is a Republican who is expected to run for mayor again this year.

The commission decided to table the public hearing until its next meeting on June 1 at the request of the applicant’s attorney, Timothy Lee, who asked for a chance to address the issues raised by opponents.

That request drew additional catcalls and demands from the residents to vote it down immediately. But the commission’s attorney, James Cirillo, cautioned that failing to give the applicant the chance to address objections would probably put the commission on the losing end of a court appeal.

"Our hands are tied," Ruocco said.

Continuing the hearing would also allow the commission to get a traffic report from the Connecticut Department of Transportation, a report from the Water Pollution Control Authority on whether the sewer line had enough capacity for 51 townhouses, and an environmental review by the town’s Inland Wetlands Commission, which meets next Tuesday.

What especially angered the neighbors was the applicant’s notification letter to residents within 500 feet of the property, which referred to "a proposal to build" without mentioning that the application involved a zoning change.

They felt that was deceptive, and they recalled that an earlier application for an 11-lot subdivision was approved in 2004 without any notification to neighbors.

Commission administrator David Anderson said the 2004 subdivision approval expires in July.

The applicant, RT Enterprises of East Haven LLC, which is actually headquartered in Easton, requested a zoning change from R-3 residential to a Planned Elderly Facilities District, plus site plan approval for a 51-unit condominium, mostly constructed as duplex townhouses.

A Planned Elderly Facilities District is high-density housing that is deed-restricted for residency by people 55 and older.

The development is proposed for an 11.7-acre property at the end of Three Stone Pillars Road. The address on record for it is 155 Short Beach Road, which is state highway Route 142.

East Haven environmentalist Niki Whitehead of Hilton Street presented the commission with a report by a soil scientist identifying a previously unrecorded inland wetland on the development site.

Whitehead said this new information should require RT Enterprises to withdraw its application and redesign the condominium development.

She and members of the Luckey Family Trust, which operates an organic farm on Meadow Street, also presented DOT data indicating that between 2004 and 2008 there were an average of two accidents a month on that stretch of Short Beach Road leading into Branford.

They even showed commission members videos they uploaded to YouTube of traffic racing along that road.

The applicant’s traffic engineer, Kwesi Brown, had earlier presented a report concluding that the proposed development would not adversely impact traffic conditions on Short Beach Road.

Lee said the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protections Office of Long Island Sound Programs had a number of suggestions for lessening the impact on the tidal wetlands along the East Haven River. He said the applicant was willing to implement those improvements in the design of the development’s drainage control system.

Many of the opponents objected to the construction of 51 townhouse apartments on an eight-acre section of the property. Besides the environmental and traffic problems, they said it would change the character of their neighborhood.

"We think of this as shoehorning a housing project into a quiet neighborhood," said Vincent Perrotti of Three Stone Pillars Road.