Calling a Clapboard Hill Road man’s reasoning faulty, planning officials on Tuesday denied his bid to erect a 6-foot-high driveway gate and adjoining fence.
The proposed driveway gate for 100 Clapboard Ridge Road.
Roy Savelli of 100 Clapboard Hill Road told members of the Planning & Zoning Commission that the higher-than-allowed gate and fencing would prevent his three young daughters from climbing over and toward the road at a blind curve.
Commissioner Laszlo Papp told Savelli that he had a beautiful family “and I certainly appreciate that you are trying to protect them as much as you can.”
“On the other hand, I am somewhat puzzled by your reasoning,” Papp said at the meeting, held at Town Hall. “I have lived here for 60-something years and many generations grow up with no fencing at all. This fencing is a new phenomenon in New Canaan. And to argue that you cannot control three children yourself within your property and you want us to provide that kind of protection, I find it unreasonable.”
Papp added later: “This is not a penal colony. Fencing in to an extreme height is against the regulations.”
P&Z denied Savelli’s application by 8-1, with only commissioner Dick Ward voting against the denial.
Savelli had sought an exception to Section 6.5.C of New Canaan’s Zoning Regulations (see page 125 here), which prohibits fencing more than four feet high above finished grade, except by Special Permit.
Calling the commission’s attention to “my three little apples of daddy’s eye over there”—his three kids with their mother, sitting in the back row of the Town Meeting Room—Savelli showed members a video of what it looks like to approach his driveway and offered to show them an additional video of his kids scaling a four-foot fence in town “in less than three seconds.”
Noting that Clapboard Hill is a popular cut-thru to East School, Savelli said his property is unique in that the driveway lets out onto a blind curve, and that other homes in New Canaan have more imposing fencing than what he was proposing. Specifically, the 6-foot electronic gate across the 20-foot-wide driveway would adjoin with a 6-foot-high fence on the blind curve side of the driveway, Savelli said.
“We are concerned that our daughters are in danger because that curve on a double-yellow line road, cars come around fast and you don’t have enough time to brake because of the way the driveway comes out on the blind curve,” Savelli said.
Savelli said he and his wife do not let their kids run wild but that the geography “poses a danger” to both his family and motorists.
“A dog, a child could easily run out there,” he said. “I think the difference between a 4-foot and a 6-foot fence may be a 3-second climb difference, but that 3-second climb may be enough to save that child’s life,” he said.
Asked whether he would consider a condition under which the fencing could come down when his kids got a bit older, Savelli said: “That is an added expense that I would consider, I guess I would consider that. It’s obviously my desire is to protect my children, if you said when they reach 18 or 21 that I had to take the fence or gate down.”
At that point, commissioner Bill Redman broke in, saying: “At 18, they are probably climbing over it for another reason,” drawing laughter from the room.
Savelli, also laughing, said: “I don’t want that on the record.”
The 3-acre property includes a 7,000-square-foot home and was sold for $3,125,000 earlier this month, tax records show. (The property owner is listed as ‘154 Roy’s Realty LLC’ out of New York, N.Y., though a search of updated records in the New York Secretary of the State database shows no such entity.)
One neighbor, Erika Reiser of Carter Street, asked why Savelli—with nearly 300 properties on the market in New Canaan—opted to purchase this particular piece of property.
“It is new construction it is something you have chosen to buy and purchase,” she said.
Reiser added: “I welcome you. I think you will enjoy the people, the town and support here but I don’t understand—if your angels your princesses are your major concern, then maybe that is not the right house for you in this town.”
Commissioner Kent Turner asked about a situation where the gate was left open. Savelli responded, in part: “We wouldn’t leave it open, just as we wouldn’t leave poison on the counter.”
Redman just before the commission’s vote said Savelli has more viable options than the taller fence, including a solid four-foot fence.
[Editor’s Note: The name of the street has been updated to Clapboard ‘Hill’ instead of ‘Ridge’.]
How about just putting razor wire on top of the four foot fence? Or an invisible fence and each kid can wear a collar? We can all have a nice chuckle over how ridiculous his argument for this fence is but perhaps these children are feral and a four foot fence just can’t hold them. I mean won’t someone please think of the children?