Making good on his word following the town’s denial last month of a plan to redevelop the Roger Sherman Inn property, a Norwalk developer has filed an appeal of the decision in Superior Court, town officials said Tuesday night.
The New Canaan town clerk on Monday received an appeal of the Planning & Zoning Commission’s decision, according to Town Planner Steve Palmer.
Palmer told members of P&Z during their regular meeting that “it was surprising to receive it [Monday] because Friday the 21st was the end of the 15-day appeal period and the Town Clerk got it yesterday.”
“I was relieved that it came in Monday, but there is still a question of whether it was timely because it may have been in the marshal’s hand in that 15-day period, and there may have been some grace period that is given by the statutes that allows them not to deliver it in 15 days to the town, so [Town Attorney] Ira [Bloom] is researching that.
Andrew Glazer of Glazer Group told NewCanaanite.com that he would appeal P&Z’s decision immediately after the group on March 28 denied his application by a 7-2 vote.
Glazer had sought to redevelop the property at 195 Oenoke Ridge Road with six single-family homes, and said during an interview just after P&Z’s denial that he was especially disappointed because he had received encouragement from some commissioners to proceed when his plan first came down from eight to seven units, in the fall.
“So the hypocrisy is infuriating, because I proceeded on the understanding, though clearly nonbinding, that the commissioners—which is a normal process to do and sit down, take a look, ‘What do you guys think?’—there’s no guarantee, we all know that, but they clearly said, ‘This looks good,’ ” Glazer had told NewCanaanite.com.
Palmer disclosed the appeal at the end of P&Z’s meeting, during a roundup of administrative actions.
The municipal body had cited the character of the neighborhood and the as-of-right residential use of the property—it’s 1.8 acres and normally could accommodate a single residence in its zone—in denying Glazer’s application.
That denial bookended a series of applications and re-applications that saw plans for the Roger Sherman site evolve—from eight new units, to seven following objections raised by an attorney retained by several neighbors, then to six in December. Each of those plans included a partial restoration of what Glazer had determined to be the oldest part of the original structure (said to be New Canaan’s first library). Most recently, plans called for picking up and moving that structure closer to Oenoke.
Glazer in a March 17 letter published in NewCanaanite.com floated the idea of a four-unit development at the Roger Sherman Inn.