New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
Waterfront blight fight
EAST HAVEN — For years, the town has tried to get the owner of two waterfront properties along Morgan Avenue in the Morgan Point section to fix up the properties, as neighbors have complained repeatedly.
Owner Marcia Munro has for months negotiated the process to appeal blight citations for her inherited homes at 110 and 114 Morgan Ave., even as she fought another serious battle with her own health issues.
This week, the Planning and Zoning Commission, which for several months has told Munro it wanted to see a signed contract with a contractor who will bring her houses into compliance, rejected Munro’s appeal — even as they sat face-to-face with the contractor Munro said is going to do the job.
The four members present, led by Chairman William DeMayo, did so Wednesday night against the advice of their own zoning staff. Zoning Enforcement Officer Christopher Soto had recommended that the commission give Munro another 30-day extension to get the contract signed and the work underway.
They voted to reject the appeal at the suggestion of Assistant Town Attorney Al Zullo — father of Town Attorney and state Rep. Joe Zullo, R-East Haven — and Director of Administration and Management Sal Brancati.
“We’ve got to serve the entire town and not just one person,” said DeMayo. “I want to set the fire with gasoline, and I want to recommend that we deny it . ... I think by denying it it’s going
to light a fire” to get Munro to take action, he said.
Zullo told the commission that “if you deny it, they get treated just like everybody else.”
Brancati said that if Munro “signed a contract 90 days ago, it wouldn’t be here.”
The unanimous rejection of Munro’s appeal by DeMayo and PZC members Marlene Asid, Ray DiMartino and Fred Marotti will trigger the registration of tax liens for $16,000 in past fines against Munro.
Munro still has the option to appeal in Superior Court.
At the PZC’s meeting Wednesday night, Munro’s contractor, Glenn Gundersen of Glenn R. Gundersen Co. of Guilford, told the PZC that a new roof, gutters and fascia for the house at 110 Morgan Ave. are likely to cost about $26,000.
The two houses probably are not the most blighted houses in East Haven. But they stand in contrast to the well-kept houses of many of their waterfront neighbors in the neighborhood.
Munro, whose late grandfather and later her aunt used to live in the larger of the two houses, at 110 Morgan Ave., which she now owns with her daughter, Leslie Munro, said she’s working to get work done to bring her houses into compliance.
“Yes, there will be a contract ... shortly,” she said.
But Munro believes there are other pressures at work.
“Basically, the biggest problem is, I have two houses
here, on the water, that don’t require flood insurance,” Munro said by phone the day after the meeting. Most of the houses in her neighborhood “require flood insurance just to get a mortgage,” but hers don’t, she said.
Munro feels as if she’s being pushed to sell her property, and she doesn’t want to do that.
“I don’t want to sell these houses, first of all,” said Munro, who has had two major surgeries, as well as other procedures, since 2015.
“It’s a taking — that’s what it is,” said John Ferrante, a friend of Munro who also is a lawyer, after the meeting. “Now she has to go to Superior Court.”
Brancati said the town is not looking to take Munro’s properties. All it wants is to see her sign a contract to fix them, he said. If anything, East Haven has been more patient with Munro than it has with others cited for blight because of her health issues, he said.
Ferrante said Munro has managed to take care of two of the three things the town originally cited her for: the condition of the landscaping on her property and unsightly debris on the property, and now is trying to bring the actual structures into compliance.
Meanwhile, prior to the PZC’s March meeting, at which the issue was tabled, Munro had received medical treatment for 24 of the 60 previous days, Ferrante said, suggesting that as one reason why she may not have moved faster to resolve the issues.
The files on the two properties in the zoning office contain a number of complaints over the years — dating back to at least 2003 — from at least three neighbors.
“This property has plagued our neighborhood for 30 years,” said one 2011 complaint in the file. “Please address this.”
The person who made that complaint, Sally Cammarano, whose grandparents and then parents lived in a house on the street — and who used to own the house next door to the larger of Munro’s two houses — said she was glad to see the town finally take action.
“They have given this woman so much time,” said Cammarano, who does not currently live in the neighborhood but owns a house at 92 Morgan Ave., as well as a house up the beach on Cosey Beach Avenue.
“She’s gotten away with so much for so many years,” said Cammarano, who currently lives in a nearby community but said she may move back to Morgan Point in a few years.
“It’s been sad, and we’ve all lived with it,” Cammarano said. “While East Haven has zoning rules, no one ever took the time to enforce them. I’m just thrilled that somebody else has just finally taken some notice . ... I kind of just walked away and thought maybe nobody is ever going to do anything.”