NO SOAP - MAITLAND, SAVAGEUX REJECT FAR CHANGES, REFER THE MATTER TO STAFF FOR "FURTHER STUDY"

From his portable studio at Nathaniel WITHERed Home, P&Z Chairman richard MAItLAND announces his opposition

For some reason I couldn't access Greenwichfreepress via Safari yesterday (still can't; shades of readers' difficulties with this site last summer), so I wasn't aware of that paper's thorough coverage of Tuesday's P&Z hearing on FAR changes proposed by realtors and architects until a reader alerted me to it. Using Chrome's browser, I accessed it. The discussion went on way past midnight, which is typical, and also why I stopped doing those meetings as soon as I quit practicing land use law - I was (reluctantly) willing to lose my nights if someone was paying me a couple of hundred bucks an hour to attend, but otherwise, forget it.

Fortunately for us, Greenwich Free Press is made of sterner stuff, so there's an extensive report on its site. The details are interesting, but to cut to the chase, I'll summarize the whole lengthy evening's result thus.

Greenwich P&Z denies FAR proposal

UPDATE: The Greenwich Association of Realtors sent out this note to members last night:

GAR Members,

Our proposal to provide relief to homeowners in an effort to allow people to use their existing attic space, minimize topographical manipulations and encourage the preservation of existing housing stock was denied by the Planning and Zoning Commission last night. 

Over two years' worth of work by our Board of Directors, staff, volunteer land-use experts and a renowned land use attorney was not considered to be a complete fix of PZ's over-complicated and conflicting regulations that have caused such manipulation of our Town. The proposal was intended as the first step to provide some relief while we tried to work with PZ staff and commission to consider broader and streamlined changes to the regulations. 

We would like to especially thank Paul Pugliese and Tony D'Andrea for their efforts on this initiative and to the dozen of members who were there at PZ meeting last night until 1am. Thank you!

Sincerely,

BK Bates