Grace Farms Withdraws Re-Filed Permit Application, Opening Questions About Long-Term Operation

An attorney on behalf of Grace Farms this week withdrew the organization’s re-filed application for a special permit. In a short letter to the town planner dated Feb. 5, attorney Ted O’Hanlon of Stamford-based Robinson+Cole said that Grace Farms looks forward “to working with you on the implementation and enforcement” of an existing special permit, approved last fall by the Planning & Zoning Commission with 100-plus conditions. Coming on the heels of a contentious P&Z hearing where several neighbors complained that Grace Farms already has violated that existing permit in many ways, the withdrawal raises new questions about just what set of rules the Lukes Wood Road organization will operate under in the long term. According to a lawsuit filed by neighbors Timothy Curt and Dona Bissonnette of Smith Ridge Road, the post-hearing legal notices of P&Z’s decision last year were “defective, incomplete and misleading” and also failed to meet the requirements of state law and the town’s own zoning regulations.

Grace Farms Sues Town Over Conditions of P&Z Approval

Saying its rights as a religious organization are being violated, Grace Farms on Friday sued the town in connection with conditions included in recent approvals from the Planning & Zoning Commission. The Grace Farms Foundation “is statutorily and classically aggrieved” by P&Z’s Sept. 26 heavily conditioned approval of its application to amend its zoning permit and is appealing the town’s decision because it is “specially and injuriously affected,” according to a lawsuit filed on behalf of the Lukes Wood Road organization by Attorney Diana Neeves of Stamford-based Robinson + Cole. “The Resolution is illegal, arbitrary, capricious and constitutes an abuse of discretion for a variety of reasons,” including that it “imposes conditions on activities and events of the [Grace Farms] Foundation that are not reasonably supported by substantial evidence in the record before the Commission about the [Grace Farms] Foundation’s operations and how they protect the health and safety of visitors and the neighborhood,” according to the lawsuit, filed in state Superior Court and received Oct. 20 in the New Canaan Town Clerk’s office.

Grace Farms Cannot Host Revenue-Generating Events, Must Remove ‘Sound Sculpture’ from Pond Under Draft Conditions for Approval

Grace Farms may not host revenue-generating events, must remove the “sound sculpture” from a pond on its property and may not advertise its food service establishment as a standalone amenity, according to conditions now under consideration by the town as part of the organization’s closely followed application. At the same time, the Lukes Wood Road facility may expand the operating hours of its “Commons” cafeteria, as well as its “Tea Room,” may sell books, souvenirs and other items, can let outside groups use its gym and may continue as a religious organization while also calling itself a club or philanthropic agency, under some of the 25 findings and 99 conditions now in draft form before the Planning & Zoning Commission. P&Z is scheduled to take up the application, again, at its regular 7 p.m. meeting Tuesday at Town Hall. Commissioners in their deliberations since closing the public hearing on Grace Farms have said that the organization is unlike any that’s come before P&Z in the past. That said, if approved, the revised permit expected to set a new standard for what’s allowable with respect to institutional uses in residential zones in town.