No Appeals For Oxford, Garden Homes

An appellate court has denied the town’s appeal of a Superior Court decision allowing a developer to build affordable housing.

The project will be built on 41-acres along Donovan and Hurley Roads.

Original Decision

In a written decision in November, Judge John W. Pickard said the Oxford Planning and Zoning Commission erred when it rejected an application from Garden Homes Management Corp. to build a 113-unit housing complex. Thirty-five of the units were to be considered affordable, as defined by state law.

The commission’s reasons for denying the mobile home community did not clearly outweigh the need for affordable housing in Oxford,” the judge wrote.

Since 1991, state law has required all municipalities to adopt zoning regulations that promote housing choice and economic diversity in housing, including housing for both low and moderate income households,’” the judge wrote.

The Oxford (zoning) regulations do not contain any provisions which seriously address this requirement,” Pickard wrote.

The judge also pointed out that just 1.1 percent of the housing stock in Oxford qualifies as affordable, ranking Oxford near the bottom of Connecticut’s 169 municipalities.”

Appeal

In late November, the Board of Selectmen, the Inland Wetlands Commission and the Planning and Zoning Commission all said they were in favor of appealing Judge Pickard’s decision.

In the meantime, the town is finally trying to draft affordable housing regulations — the lack of which played a large role in the town’s loss in the first place. A moratorium on affordable housing applications is now in place. However, that moratorium does not include this application.

The appellate court issued notice March 10 denying Oxford’s attempt to appeal. The court also denied Garden Homes’ attempt to overturn a Inland Wetland rejection of the project.

Richard Freedman, president of Garden Homes Management Corp., said the court’s rejection of Oxford’s appeal means he could be able to build 142 houses on the property.

Thirty percent of the houses would be affordable, Freedman said. The project has to be tweaked to keep it away from wetland.

We are essentially starting over with 142 homes in the plan,” he said.

Pat Cocchiarella, chairman of the Planning and Zoning Commission, said he was saddened” by the court’s decision.

I was really hoping the court would listen to us,” he said.

Charles Andres, the Planning and Zoning Commission’s attorney and Town Attorney Fran Teodesio could not be reached for comment.

Cocchiarella issued a statement on the matter March 23. It reads:

Personally, I believe it is a sad day when the State of Connecticut and its courts deny a community the right to determine its own character, population density, and land use. The United States of America came into existence because people wanted the right to self-determination. Communities in Connecticut are denied these rights under current state laws. Local land use commissions, duly elected by the people as their representatives are prohibited from making decisions based on the fiscal impact of a project on the community and / or the change in the community’s character that would result from it. A reading of the legislative record indicates that these statutes are being used in a manner far in excess of the purposes originally intended by our lawmakers. These statues effectively destroy the uniqueness that has historically characterized Connecticut cities and towns and made Connecticut a desirable place to live and do business. Our only recourse is to elect representatives to the state legislature who will reexamine these state statues and correct the inequities that these onerous regulations impose on the communities of Connecticut.”

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