An alternative dispute resolution or ‘ADR’ is scheduled for Wednesday in a civil lawsuit that claims the Planning & Zoning Commission failed in its duties in approving a private school’s applications to install a new turf field atop a proposed parking structure earlier this year, court records show.
A process designed to help parties in a civil complaint find resolution without going to trial, the ADR would bring together representatives of 10 plaintiff neighbors of St. Luke’s School with representatives from both the school and P&Z.
According to a revised complaint filed in August, P&Z’s approval of the private school’s applications was “illegal, arbitrary, and in abuse of the discretion vested in the Commission” in several ways. It violates the local zoning regulations and state law, according to the complaint filed by attorney Joel Green of Bridgeport-based Green and Gross, P.C.
P&Z’s decision also “was not reasonably based upon the record” or “evidence, documents and information” produced by St. Luke’s, and the application itself “misstated and mischaracterized the true state and condition” of the North Wilton Road property, the complaint said.
Referring to one of the principal plaintiffs, the complaint also said that P&Z erred in its finding that an intervenor in the case “had failed to prove that the conduct proposed in the applications is reasonably likely to have the effect of unreasonably polluting, impairing or destroying the public trust in the air, water or other resources.”
P&Z reviewed the applications filed on behalf of the school—they include one for a text amendment, in addition to Special Permit and site plan approvals—in four public hearings between December 2023 and March 2024.
At the final public hearing, Green noted that manmade chemicals known as ‘PFAs’ that have been shown to have harmful effects on animals and people have been found in the nearby Grupes Reservoir, citing the Norwalk River Watershed Association. (Opponents of the school’s plans argued that PFAs would result from the project and run off of the new structure—an assertion that the school’s attorney denied.) Green called for the school to be more transparent with respect to its own water testing, and also took aim at letters submitted to the Commission in support of the project, saying they came not from direct neighbors but St. Luke’s donors. He also called for the school to explore other ways to improve its traffic flow off of North Wilton Road and within its campus that did not include a new parking garage.
According to the lawsuit, whose original complaint was filed in June, property owners within 100 feet of St. Luke’s are “statutorily aggrieved” as well as “classically aggrieved” in that they’ll be “adversely affected by the activities and conduct proposed in the Applications approved in the Decision as a result of increased traffic, unreasonable noise and lighting and the pollution of the air water and natural resources.”
P&Z “relied upon and was improperly influenced by misstatements and misrepresentations by St. Luke’s Foundation and others of various facts” regarding the zoning regulations and state law, the complaint said.
The defendants have not submitted a formal answer, according to Connecticut Judicial Branch records. The plaintiffs’ appeal seeks to undo P&Z’s decision.
Hard to tell if this is NIMBY or justified concern. Nevertheless, individuals who purchase homes in the immediate vicinity of an established private school with a decades-long record of growth should not anticipate that it will get smaller and quieter. It appears the school came up with a very creative solution to ameliorate neighborhood traffic and their own parking challenges. A for effort.