ANSONIA – Land use administrator Ronda Porrini said she would issue a cease-and-desist to order Burns Construction to stop rock-crushing operations on Riverside Drive, following a lengthy discussion of the issue during a planning and zoning commission meeting March 30.
The commission was scheduled to discuss an application for a rock-crushing permit from Burns Construction during its meeting. However, attorney Ben Proto, speaking on behalf of the company, said Burns is already crushing rocks on the site.
Proto said the company is currently crushing rocks under a permit issued in February 2020 by former zoning enforcement officer David Blackwell. However, neighbors at the time pointed out rock crushing was not a permitted use in the city’s zoning regulations.
Members of the commission said March 30 that the permit was invalidated in 2022 by a settlement agreement signed by Burns and three neighbors who sued the company over the operation.
The three neighbors from that case – Andrew Mark, Leonard Marazzi and Alderman Christopher Rogers – each attended the planning and zoning meeting and said Burns had not been complying with the terms of that settlement. Rogers said the neighborhood has continued to fight rock-crushing in the area since 2022.
“If we’re going unanswered, which we have been for years, we haven’t gotten any answers, who’s going to answer this?” Rogers said.
Rogers was not an Alderman at the time of the dispute.
Background
Burns Construction first received a permit to crush rocks on Riverside Drive in February 2020. However, rock-crushing was not a permitted use in the city’s zoning regulations at the time.
Marazzi, Mark, and Rogers sued the city’s planning & zoning commission and Burns Construction over rock-crushing and quality of life issues in October 2021.
The neighbors and their attorney repeatedly said rock-crushing was never spelled out as a permitted use in the city’s zoning code, and that the permit should not have been issued.
Former Mayor David Cassetti’s administration had argued rock-crushing is OK, as long as the materials being crushed don’t originate on-site.
In September 2021, the city’s planning and zoning commission voted to add “rock crushing” to the city’s zoning regulations with parameters, including how many machines could be used and for how many hours per day.
The neighbors reached a settlement agreement with Burns Construction in July 2022. The settlement agreement included terms that would allow the rock-crushing operation to go ahead, with some restrictions.
One of the settlement terms required Burns Construction to apply for a special permit from the City of Ansonia to operate its rock crushers within 60 days. However, the company did not apply for the permit by the deadline.
In August 2025, the city received a complaint from a neighbor saying that Burns wasn’t complying with the terms of the settlement agreement, according to commission chairman Jared Heon.
Burns Construction applied for a new rock-crushing permit in January 2026, more than three years after the settlement-imposed deadline had passed.
At a March 2 meeting, Proto acknowledged the passing of the deadline.
“They have no excuse for that,” Proto said when asked why no permit had been applied for. “And quite frankly, when I took this file over late last year, that’s when I looked at it and said, why has no special permit been filed? So I don’t have an answer for you, other than it just wasn’t.”
Commissioners, Burns Disagree Over Old Permit
Despite the late application, Proto said the previous permit from 2020 is still valid.
“We have a zoning permit to operate the rock-crushing. That zoning permit has never been revoked,” Proto said.
Heon said that the old permit became invalid when the settlement deadline passed. He said Burns failed to apply for a new permit within two months of the settlement.
However, Proto said that, because no one ever voted to explicitly revoke the permit, it remains in effect.
“A permit is good for as long as the permit is in place, until it’s either revoked or given up,” Proto said.
The commissioners, after a lengthy discussion over whether Burns is crushing rocks under a valid permit or not, voted to refer the matter to city staff for review and recommend that a cease-and-desist order be issued if the company is currently crushing rocks.
Neighbors Say Quality Of Life Issues Continue
The three residents who sued the company in 2021 each spoke to say that they’ve continued to deal with dust, noise, and quality-of-life issues since the settlement was signed.
Mark said he could smell asphalt from the site while walking his dog in the morning.
“This morning I came out at 7 o’clock to walk my dog, smelled that acrid smoke of asphalt being made, and I didn’t know that was allowed, especially at 7 o’clock in the morning,” Mark said.
He said his wife smelled the same odor when she left for work fifteen minutes later.
“I don’t know, is that allowed? I’d like to find that out, because that seems to me it’s a bit early in the morning for you to be poisoning my air. And that’s exactly what they’re doing,” Mark said.
Proto responded and said Burns is currently paving part of the property for a storage area, which could be creating the smell. He said the company is not creating asphalt and lacks a permit to do so.
“There might have been asphalt brought to the property for purposes of paving,” Proto said.
Marazzi said that trucks entering and exiting the property have been wearing down surrounding roads.
“They have a big project going on over in Shelton and the trucks are coming in from there. So it does wear and tear, you know, on the roads,” Marazzi said.
He read a letter from Westwood Road residents Rick and Barbara Quinn, who asked the commission to take action against Burns.
“We cannot afford to wait any longer. It’s too important, and the company’s demonstrated a lack of immediacy regarding the issue that should not be tolerated any further,” the letter said.
Rogers said that the property continues to cause dust and dirt issues in his home.
“Mr. Burns here came to my house and saw my car completely covered with dust, completely covered. My house is filled with dirt,” Rogers said.
In a presentation, Proto provided the commission with numbers regarding the scale of on-site operations. He said the company crushes a negligible amount of concrete, a point of concern raised by neighbors in a past meeting.
“Between January 2023 and the end of February 2026, we crushed 192,442 tons of material. I’ll say that again, 192,442 tons of material. In that roughly 40-month period, 384 tons, or two-tenths of 1 percent, were concrete,” Proto said.
Commissioner Dana Haigh said 384 tons was still a substantial amount.
“Three hundred tons over 36 months, give or take, I think it was a little over that, that’s still eight tons a month. So, negligible (in) your overall scope of business, but I know the public’s concerned that it’s still a decent amount of concrete to be breaking up,” Haigh said.
Company vice president Ken Burns, Jr., who attended the meeting, said the concrete is mixed in with other materials, which lessens the impact. He said the company also sets a high fee for concrete-crushing to minimize the amount that they receive.
The planning and zoning commission is scheduled to revisit the issue at a meeting April 27.
You can view Burns’ application materials on the city website here and here.
Burns is also scheduled to appeal a cease-and-desist order at a meeting of the zoning board of appeals April 30, according to the city website.