Angry words exchanged over process of zoning change

SALISBURY — The Planning and Zoning Commission, during its regular monthly meeting Tuesday, July 5, set dates for two public hearings. One is on a proposed change to the zoning regulations governing expansion of nonconforming structures. The other is on a proposed moratorium on special permit applications within the Lake Protection Overlay Zone for second-story additions or other vertical expansions.The former, which would eliminate special permits for enlargement of nonconforming buildings altogether, for the entire town, must first be submitted to the Northwestern Connecticut Council of Governments (COG) for review. The COG is a regional organization made up of the first selectmen from nine Litchfield County towns, including all six towns of the Region One School District.That public hearing, in Salisbury, is scheduled for Aug. 9.The public hearing on the moratorium will be Tuesday, July 19, at 6:30 p.m.The hearings are the latest chapters in the ongoing saga that began with a zoning text amendment proposed by the Lake Wononscopomuc Association last year. The association’s amendment would have prohibited expansion of nonconforming homes in the Lake Protection Overlay Zone (which extends to 300 feet from the water) and eliminated the special permit process that currently governs such properties.The amendment has been the subject of numerous meetings and hearings — and one prior negative vote, on Nov. 16, 2010. The commission’s own version failed in a vote June 21 in its presented form — covering 300 feet from the water — and a second time, in a version extending to 75 feet from the water.Planning and Zoning Chairman Michael Klemens voted for the 300-foot version and against the 75-foot version — surprising the audience and some commissioners. At Tuesday’s meeting a letter from Klemens to the commission was read into the record, explaining his votes and the thinking behind them.Klemens wrote: “My own viewpoints on this matter have evolved to the position that this particular type of special permit, one that is granting relief from our own zoning regulations, is in fact a variance masquerading under the guise of a special permit. “And from my understanding of the law, as well as the urgency cited in the Poland Report for clarity and predictability within all our land-use regulations, it has become clear that in my viewpoint, we are usurping the role of the Zoning Board of Appeals, the body specifically charged with granting relief from our zoning regulations using a variety of hardship litmus tests.”Klemens also discussed the issue of “whether or not a vertical expansion with the same nonconforming footprint, constitutes an increase in non-conformity,” and mentioned that he had consulted both the commission’s attorney and planning consultant on those questions and about a moratorium.A second letter, from commissioner Jon Higgins (who was out of the country) to Klemens, took sharp issue with Klemens’ actions in consulting the attorney and consultant — and incurring fees.Higgins wrote: “Your recent action to incur fees from ... your proposed language on expansion of nonconforming sites townwide was done without commission discussion and I find [it] terribly concerning. “What is the purpose of the commission if you unilaterally decide what we are doing?”Klemens, in his letter, conceded Higgins’ point. Consulting the attorney and planner “was an afterthought on my part, and in retrospect should have been vetted by the commission, and for that I take full responsibility and blame for acting unilaterally without the benefit of a full discussion.”The task on Tuesday was to decide whether or not to move the process on the zoning text amendment and the moratorium to the public hearing stage — not to debate the merits of each proposal. Commissioner Dan Dwyer made this point several times.

Latest News

South Kent School’s unofficial March reunion

Elmarko Jackson was named a 2023 McDonald’s All American in his senior year at South Kent School. He helped lead the Cardinals to a New England Prep School Athletic Conference (NEPSAC) AAA title victory and was recruited to play at the University of Kansas. This March he will play point guard for the Jayhawks when they enter the tournament as a No. 4 seed against (13) Samford University.

Riley Klein

SOUTH KENT — March Madness will feature seven former South Kent Cardinals who now play on Division 1 NCAA teams.

The top-tier high school basketball program will be well represented with graduates from each of the past three years heading to “The Big Dance.”

Keep ReadingShow less
Hotchkiss grads dancing with Yale

Nick Townsend helped Yale win the Ivy League.

Screenshot from ESPN+ Broadcast

LAKEVILLE — Yale University advanced to the NCAA men’s basketball tournament after a buzzer-beater win over Brown University in the Ivy League championship game Sunday, March 17.

On Yale’s roster this year are two graduates of The Hotchkiss School: Nick Townsend, class of ‘22, and Jack Molloy, class of ‘21. Townsend wears No. 42 and Molloy wears No. 33.

Keep ReadingShow less
Handbells of St. Andrew’s to ring out Easter morning

Anne Everett and Bonnie Rosborough wait their turn to sound notes as bell ringers practicing to take part in the Easter morning service at St. Andrew’s Church.

Kathryn Boughton

KENT—There will be a joyful noise in St. Andrew’s Church Easter morning when a set of handbells donated to the church some 40 years ago are used for the first time by a choir currently rehearsing with music director Susan Guse.

Guse said that the church got the valuable three-octave set when Harlem Valley Psychiatric Center closed in the late 1980s and the bells were donated to the church. “The center used the bells for music therapy for younger patients. Our priest then was chaplain there and when the center closed, he brought the bells here,” she explained.

Keep ReadingShow less
Picasso’s American debut was a financial flop
Picasso’s American debut was a financial flop
Penguin Random House

‘Picasso’s War” by Foreign Affairs senior editor Hugh Eakin, who has written about the art world for publications like The New York Review of Books, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and The New York Times, is not about Pablo Picasso’s time in Nazi-occupied Paris and being harassed by the Gestapo, nor about his 1937 oil painting “Guernica,” in response to the aerial bombing of civilians in the Basque town during the Spanish Civil War.

Instead, the Penguin Random House book’s subtitle makes a clearer statement of intent: “How Modern Art Came To America.” This war was not between military forces but a cultural war combating America’s distaste for the emerging modernism that had flourished in Europe in the early decades of the 20th century.

Keep ReadingShow less