Seeking more flexible and legally defensible rules, town officials last week voted to expand a section of the New Canaan Zoning Regulations that pertains to the allowable heights of gates and columns, such as those found at the ends of residential driveways.
Until now, homeowners in any residential zone seeking to install fences or freestanding walls higher than four feet above finished grade—when in the front yard and located between the front property line and front yard setback line—applied to the Planning & Zoning Commission for a special permit to do so.
The across-the-board rule, while ensuring that New Canaan’s larger residential zones don’t appear sealed from the public roadway in a cold and distant way, have brought on “a number of issues,” according to P&Z Chairman John Goodwin.
“It just brings us to a point where we are trying to over-regulate a very difficult area,” Goodwin said during the group’s regular meeting on Jan. 31, held at Town Hall.
“In addition to that, as you know, [town] attorney [Ira] Bloom has some concerns that this is one of these provisions of the regulations where there is just a little too much uncertainty or leeway as to how we are making decisions. So, as we have been discussing over the past six months or so, the idea has been to get up a good set of regs we think are flexible.”
Following a 7-0 vote by the commission, property owners in the two- and four-acre zones may put up a gate up to six feet above finished grade “provided the gate is an open gate, such as wrought iron, where no more than 50 percent of the gate is opaque.”
A light placed atop a pillar could exceed no more than two additional feet, under the new rule.
Those voting in favor of the measure included Goodwin, P&Z Secretary Jean Grzelecki and Commissioners Jack Flinn, Laszlo Papp, Dan Radman, John Kriz and Bill Redman. Absent members included Elizabeth DeLuca, Kent Turner, Dick Ward and Claire Tiscornia, as well as Tony Shizari, who is stepping down from the volunteer body.
The decision follows the town’s settlement of an appeal brought by the owners of a Lukes Wood Road home in civil court after P&Z denied their request to allow higher-than-permitted pillars for a gate at the end of their driveway.
Echoing Papp at a past meeting, Goodwin said the newly drafted language for the zoning regulations (see page 129 here) “will protect us from turning into Greenwich” while allowing for greater “variability.”
Commissioners discussed the proposed 8-foot maximum height, with some voicing concerns it was too high, and envisioned how the new as-of-right allowable heights would look in New Canaan.
Grzelecki said she was concerned that “in separating gates and fencing walls” that P&Z would be “creating odd-looking structures.”
“Because everybody seems to want a very elaborate wrought iron fence, and how is that going to look?” she said. “It is not a very natural look.”
Kriz responded that the combinations he had seen would want a gate higher than four feet with a hump in the middle that slopes down toward walls on either side.
Flinn said he has been studying fences and stone walls throughout town and believed that low walls in front of large homes would “look funny.”
“It doesn’t—it looks great, countrified,” he said.
Radman said the town often sees homeowners break the rules and then come seeking forgiveness, so that while it’s worth updating the language “the penalties associated with going outside the regulations have to have some teeth.”
For many, a per-day fee or the prospect of paying to have a project undone is not incentive enough, Radman said.
“Quite frankly, a lot of our neighbors here in town are willing to take that chance because they really do not care about that cost,” he said.
Town Planner Steve Palmer said some residents who have violated the regulations may go to the Zoning Board of Appeal for a variance that essentially would “legalize something illegal.”
Asked how enforcement works, Palmer said he does not recommend a property owner seeking a variance, but would follow-up with a cease-and-desist with any project that is in violation and move on to a possible fine.