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09/01/2015 12:00 AMConstruction at the old Unilever warehouse site has hit a roadblock due to a pending lawsuit filed by a group of neighboring homeowners.
Shoreline Rail and Recycling, LLC, (SRR) purchased the building in question, located off of Route 145, after the warehouse had collapsed under heavy snow loads in February 2013. SRR plans to rebuild the site for use as a recycling plant for construction materials.
At the time of the purchase, following Clinton zoning regulations, SRR had less than two years to complete all regulatory work necessary to begin rebuilding the structure.
In June 2015, SRR applied for a variance with the Zoning Board of Appeals to extend its building time. The variance was granted, according to Zoning Enforcement Officer Eric Knapp.
“Under Clinton’s zoning regulations, you are allowed to rebuild a nonconforming building which was destroyed by calamity if you do it within two years of the calamity,” he explained. “Shoreline Rail requested a one year extension on the time period to complete the rebuilding. It would be allowed to rebuild the exact same structure, on exactly the same footprint, for three years after the storm that knocked it down, instead of two. That’s what the ZBA granted the variance to allow. Nothing else.”
Knapp said applications to make the site a possible recycling plant have not yet been submitted. He says uses of the land as a recycling plant is still just speculation.
“Any new use of the property would require an application to the Planning & Zoning Commission,” he said. “The use of the facility as a recycling center would require a special exception, which is the highest level of permit we have.”
Members of the Founders Village Homeowners Association (FVHA), representing the residents of the condominium complex located opposite the Amtrak line from the old warehouse, have found fault with the variance granted and the association has filed a lawsuit to halt all construction on the site.
Keith Ainsworth, the attorney representing the association, said that residents had many concerns about having a recycling plant so close to their homes.
“The lawsuit is meant to prevent a large industrial waste handling plant from being operated near pre-existing residential homes,” said Ainsworth, who was also involved in the 2014 defeat of a mass propane storage facility in Clinton at the former Bostich site.
Ainsworth said that this lawsuit focuses on the Zoning Board of Appeals’s failure to follow its own guidelines.
“The lawsuit was meant to address the problem of a variance being granted for an issue that does not meet the standard of a variance, which is hardship,” he said. “The law states that a hardship cannot be financial or self-created. This claimed hardship was both.”
Due to the lawsuit, no work can currently be made on the rebuilding and final building plans cannot be considered, according to First Selectman William Fritz.
“The owner cannot even submit an application into zoning yet for the size of the building because of this appeal of the variance,” Fritz said. “They [FVHA] know that if that variance is denied, that the buyer will then have to comply with FEMA and that will cost millions of dollars. They are just trying to stop whatever happens there.”
Fritz said that the excitement over the lawsuit has made people lose sight of the possible benefits of the recycling plant.
“It is tax revenue. It is an industrial site, it was an industrial site before Founders Village was even there and it is zoned industrial. To bring something in there that is a revenue carrier is important and also think of the jobs. It supports the local economy.”
According to Ainsworth, the lawsuit is on track.
“It is an appeal, and the real activity in such a legal matter is when the briefs are filed and later argued,” he said. “The briefing and argument schedule has not been set by the court, but they will likely be due four or five months from now.”