Ceding to concerns from town officials and neighbors, a proposed single-home development on Isaac Frye Highway in Wilton won’t be removing any additional materials from the site.
On Tuesday, the Wilton Zoning Board gave retroactive approval for the removal of 5,183 yards of gravel – gravel has already been removed from the site without the proper permission from the town – in order to allow the construction of a pre-fabricated home.
The plan the board reviewed Tuesday had been significantly altered from its previous incarnation, which called for much more excavation on the site and would have removed an additional 21,000 cubic yards of gravel over the next several months. The developer, Isaac Frye Holdings and owner Kenneth Lehtonen, had already begun construction on the site, removing gravel to create a driveway and flat area, when the town issued a cease-and-desist order. The deed for the property requires any gravel removal be approved by the Planning Board, and the property is located outside of the town’s gravel district, requiring a variance to do any extensive removal. Neither of those approvals were acquired before work started.
Originally, Lehtonen applied to continue with the original plan to create a larger, flat lot and build a single-family home, but neighbors continually raised objections to more gravel work being done in the neighborhood, even on a short-term basis.
Last week, Lehtonen submitted updated plans that would use the area already excavated to build a smaller home than originally proposed, without any more removal of gravel.
“This is not a great solution for my clients – they’re a builder. But this is an alternative that allows us to move forward. It’s the best approach to address the concerns of this board and [the abutters],” said Roy Tilsley, the attorney representing Isaac Frye Holdings.
Silas Little, the attorney representing a group of abutters to the property, said the new proposal was more acceptable to them than the original design.
“I speak on behalf of my clients, that if it is made a clear condition that not one more shovelful is removed from the site, they will not object to the variance,” Little said.
Others who live in the neighborhood said they still had concerns. Chris Owen, a resident of Isaac Frye Highway, said the board should not be lenient to the fact that development had already begun without the proper permits.
“The applicant continues to negotiate with the facts on the ground that he, himself, created,” Owen said.
Shannon Linn of Wilson Road said she was concerned about setting a precedent of after-the-fact approvals. She said it was against the public’s interest to allow that to happen.
Tilsley told the board that even if the site was pristine, he didn’t think the proposal would be considered unreasonable.
“Even if this was day one, this is a reasonable way to allow this property to be used for its intended use,” Tilsley said.
Ultimately, the board agreed with Tilsley.
“I’m persuaded that the property is unusual in how little flat land it has,” ZBA Chair Neil Faiman said. “If they had come in at the beginning, we might well have said to develop this property in any reasonable way, you might have to remove some gravel.”
Faiman said the fact that work had started prior to proper approvals was at this point, “water over the dam,” and that any benefit from restoring the property far outweighed the the disruption of hauling back in materials to restore it.
The board approved the variance to allow removal of gravel outside of the gravel district, with the condition that no further removal of materials be done without proper town approval, or as allowed by the town’s zoning ordinance or state law. They also put as a condition that the property must undergo an excavation review with the Planning Board.
The board did not address the second request for a variance, which would allow excavation in the aquifer district without Planning Board review, as the requirement to go to the Planning Board rendered it moot.
The board was unanimous in both decisions.
Ashley Saari can be reached at 924-7172 ext. 244 or asaari@ledgertranscript.com. She’s on Twitter @AshleySaariMLT.