ACTION-PACKED DERBY PLANNING AND ZONING MEETING

The Derby Planning and Zoning Commission met Tuesday night for four hours.

That’s not news, but here’s the thing:

It’s 11:20 p.m. Tuesday, it’ll be long past midnight by the time I finish this post, I’m 45 years old but I feel 80, my kid’s had the flu since Friday, and I gotta figure out how to drive my mother-in-law to the airport Wednesday for a 9:30 p.m. flight back to North Carolina. 

Think of this as a blog post:

No Action On Hops Co.

The commission did NOT act on a request from The Hops Co. on Sodom Lane for a ​“modification of site plan approval.” It’ll come up again in March.

According to a lawyer, the hugely popular craft beer venue wants to modernize and improve the rear of the property which is used for special events such as weddings. 

There are no changes planned for the main building, aka the beer garden with all the tables and beer taps.

Part of the plan calls for adding about 900 square feet (though that number was very much up for interpretation) to a building in the rear of the property to be used as an ​“event room” for weddings and such.

The Hops Co. is a pre-existing nonconforming use in a residential zone, aka grandfathered. 

That means the business cannot expand the grandfathered use (under all governing laws in the state, which are meant to protect neighbors from an encroaching use). 

It’s why the property cannot simply add parking spaces, even though everyone on God’s green Earth agrees the place needs more on site parking. Doing so would likely be an expansion of a grandfathered use and an illegal encroachment on a residential zone.

Dominick Thomas, the lawyer for The Hops Co, said the proposed renovation does not expand the use. It just improves what’s back there. It makes bathrooms ADA compliant, and generally allows the business to meet the needs of its wedding-type special event customers, Thomas said.

Thomas noted the rear portion of the property is already maxed out in terms of customer use, so the proposal is simply to make it better — not to expand.

In addition, Thomas said repeatedly — and I mean he must have said this 25 times — that the proposal does not impact or have anything to do with the front part of the property, i.e. the main building/ wildly popular beer garden.

BUT, Charles Willinger, a lawyer representing Derby’s Joe Jawoliec, who owns a whole bunch of properties in the neighborhood, said The Hops’ proposal is an obvious inappropriate expansion of a nonconforming use — one that any court of law would recognize.

In fact, Willinger argued the Hops never should have been approved in the first place, because a beer garden is much different than the previous use as a private restaurant and catering hall (back when it was Grassy Hill Lodge). He said the commission has no choice but to reject the application.

He also noted neighbors are concerned about noise, traffic, and other quality of life issues from the business (though Thomas presented a petition he said was signed by 560 Derby residents supporting the business).

Ultimately Derby P&Z chairman Ted Estwan, after acknowledging the whole thing is probably going to end up in court no matter what the commission decides, opted to ask for a legal opinion from the commission’s lawyer answering whether expanding the building violates local and state laws regarding pre-existing nonconforming uses (see the video below).

That legal opinion could be revealed at next month’s planning and zoning commission.

By the way, this is different than the long fight The Hops Co. had last year to created a “development district” that would have cleared a path for the businesses to ask to make much more substantial changes to the property.

Carlo Has A Facebook Page

Everybody wants to know what’s happening in terms of new stores, whether it’s a tiny store front, a new craft beer joint or a new Big Y.

People in government know this stuff, but they don’t always think to tell the world (unless of course it’s two days before Election Day).

Well, Carlo Sarmiento, the city’s building official, just created a Derby Building Department Facebook page.

You can view it here.

I think this is the first building department in the lower Valley to have a Facebook page. Hopefully it’ll be a great resource to find out about what’s going on in Derby in terms of new businesses and the like.

Nice job, Carlo.

Redevelopment Zone Application Coming Next Month

Listen, I know half the people on the Valley Indy FB page will call BS on this, and I get it because so many stories have been written over the years WITH NOTHING ACTUALLY HAPPENING, but a portion of the downtown redevelopment zone on the south side of Main Street in Derby is the closest it’s been to actual development in at least a decade.

Steve and Jim Lepore of Lepore & Sons LLC are part of a group trying to get something built along Factory Street, roughly in the area where Housatonic Lumber used to be.

They were at Tuesday’s P&Z meeting, and their consultants (Derby’s Karl Nilsen and former West Hartford economic development director Rob Rowlson) told the commission that they plan to submit an application next month for 200 market-rate housing units on Main Street at the former Lifetouch property and along Factory Street.

There have been plenty of illustrations, countless hours of meetings, concepts and hot air about Derby’s redevelopment zone since I took a job with The Valley Indy in 2009, but the submittal of a site plan application is a real commitment to getting something done — so stay tuned.

They don’t plan to build 200 units at once, but the group hopes to get construction started on at least a first phase by the end of this year.

Fingers crossed, people!

The Shop Rite Plaza Is Getting A Sign

I’m not supposed to editorialize, but heck, let ‘em fire me.

There was far too much time spent at Tuesday’s meeting talking about an electronic sign for the Shop Rite Plaza on Pershing Drive.

I’m pretty sure members of the commission aged 10 years during the discussion. Chairman Estwan started speaking in tongues. One guy quit.

I’m kidding. It’s important to go over the details.

Anyway, it looks like the Shop Rite Plaza at 49 Pershing Drive will be getting an electronic sign on Pershing Drive letting you know what stores are there.

Right now there’s an old-school movie-theater type sign in the parking lot, but it’s 5,000 feet above Pershing Drive so no one sees it. So a sign on Pershing Drive makes sense. I would also like them to bring back Tommy K’s Video but it doesn’t seem likely.

In Conclusion

I think it’s important to sometimes note that members of the Derby Planning and Zoning Commission — or all commissions for that matter — are not paid. They are appointed volunteers in Derby.

And I also realize that topics discussed at local meetings are HUGELY important to citizens impacted by these debates and decisions, so I hope this blog-ish, nontraditional approach to reporting tonight’s meeting did not make people angry or disappointed.

Also I love my mother-in-law and her expert use of Lysol wipes is probably why my son and the rest of the family didn’t get the flu.

Eugene, 1 a.m.