Business

Officials Cite Frogtown Road Nursery’s Violations of Decades-Old Agreement with Town

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The owner and operator of a commercial nursery on Frogtown Road have violated the terms of a 1984 agreement by storing materials on the site expressly excluded in it, town officials said last week. The town requires property owner Twin Ponds LLC and Frogtown Nurseries to “remove such unrelated nursery materials, including cement blocks, located on the disputed property between 321 and 259 Frogtown Road,” according to a March 14 letter to the business from New Canaan’s interim town planner. “This removal shall be done in a timely manner and such removal shall be completed no later than 10 days from the date of this letter,” it said. Interim Town Planner Keisha Fink’s letter comes amid a bitter, years-long and ongoing legal dispute between the nursery and three contiguous homeowners next door. That legal matter centers, in part, on the question of whether the nursery had made “continuous and uninterrupted” use of areas near its shared property line for a statutory period of 15 years that would then give the business certain rights to it, such as installing deer fencing.

Government

Long Involved in Bitter Dispute with Frogtown Road Nursery, Neighbors Now Point Fingers at the Town

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Three contiguous homeowners on Frogtown Road, involved for months in a bitter land use dispute with the commercial nursery next door, now are saying in a formal letter to the town that municipal officials have failed to address adequately their several concerns. The owners of 313, 321 and 323 Frogtown Road say in an Aug. 11 letter that “New Canaan has failed to take action on Twin Ponds Nursery (also known as The Frogtown Nurseries and formerly known as Kimberley Farm Nurseries) located at 259 Frogtown Road.”

Specifically, the homeowners say, town officials have found no resolution to their complaints about the “nonconforming use” of their residential properties, lodged since last fall. The neighbors complaints include claims that: the nursery had been storing harmful chemicals including some containing hydrochloric acid; there’s no building permit of Certificate of Occupancy on file anywhere for some structures on nursery premises; no permit exists for a dumpster on the commercial property; there are potential wetlands violations; an irrigation system and deer fence encroach on their residential properties and represent nonconforming uses. The formal letter is the latest in a dispute involving neighbors whose properties ring the western end of the nursery.