Water Pollution Control sends sewer application to P&Z
NEW CANAAN — A step has been added to the controversial multifamily proposal at 751 Weed St. in the 8-30g affordable housing application process after the Water Pollution Control Authority voted to send the sewer application to the Planning and Zoning Commission.
Obtaining a sewer connection is one of the few regulatory obstacles for construction of multifamily housing under Connecticut General Statute 8-30g, since the law generally allows developers to bypass local zoning laws.
This comes at a time when residents and local officials have raised concerns about affordable housing on three locations in town and while the town is not currently eligible for an 8-30g moratorium.
The WPCA, a group that doubles as the Board of Finance, listened to several speakers before voting unanimously to move the decision to the Planning and Zoning Commission.
The crux of the dispute was if a sewer hook-up proposed for the 102-unit 8-30g affordable housing development would require an “extension,” or rather a new “connection” of the sewer line.
“I'm going to suggest that we not quibble over words and labels but deal with the facts and what the state law actually says,” Attorney John Knuff, representing a neighbor, said.
Attorney Peter Gelderman, speaking on behalf of the town, said that under CGS 8-24, no WPCA or municipality “shall locate or extend sewage,” without referring the request to the Planning and Zoning Commission.
Speaking on behalf of site developer Arnold Karp , attorney Tim Hollister said the request did not qualify as an extension because the town had granted permission in 1959 to a request to extend public sewer to the property. Also, neighboring properties to the 3.1-acre property with a 10,000 square-foot house are already connected to the public sewer system, he said.
Karp, developer of the largest New Canaan multifamily building, the Vue, has also submitted an application for a 20-unit 830g application on 51 Main Street and is expected to submit an application for Hill Street.
In the past, the town did not refer construction projects with similar sewer changes to the Planning and Zoning Commission, according to Hollister.
When Waveny LifeCare, Millport Apartments, the Vue and Canaan Parish required physical sewer relocations of an existing sewer connection to a new point, the projects were not referred to the Planning and Zoning Commission, Hollister said.
The plans for the sewer line call for the connection being moved and to extend down Elm Street instead of through an easement on the other side of the property, so it would not be on a shared connection. “The only thing we're proposing here is to move the connection point,” Hollister said. “It does not open up any new properties in the town of New Canaan to a sewer system connection.”
Town Engineer Maria Coplit Alfaro recommended that the town deny the request for a sewer extension.
“The additional estimated 135 linear feet of sewer main would disrupt our existing right of way in Elm Street, and infrastructure there and would increase the length of public main that the town would be responsible for into perpetuity,” she said. “The town has no current nor future plans to extend the public sewer in this location.”
Board members Victor Alvarez and Maria Weingarten recused themselves from the vote.
Hollister raised concerns that board members may have determined their vote before the meeting, which prompted him to request copies of their email correspondence under the Freedom of Information Act. He said he had become concerned after Chairman Todd Laveri had said his inboxes were filling up with directions from citizens telling him how to vote.
Lavieri warned Hollister to “be careful to impugn the integrity of members of this board, very careful.”
“I'm not impugning anyone's integrity,” Hollister said. “I'm asking a very logical and necessary, legally necessary, question that comes right out of the email exchanges.”