What were we thinking?
/
(No, this is not our "stadium")
Judging from the almost-daily email copies I receive, Old Church Road resident Effros spends most of his life filing warning notices and contempt motions concerning the high school playing fields, which is probably amusing to everyone except parents of student athletes. The latest hit comes from the new, delayed school start time, which is pretty much eliminating the time after-school sports can be conducted.
I can certainly understand those parents' frustrations, but their ire might better be directed, and just as fruitlessly, because they're all long-gone, the various town bodies that gave this one-man-asylum complete veto power over activities conducted on the Hillside Road campus.
Note, in the passage below, that the Superior Court judge hearing Effros' original suit was clearly concerned that the parties would be back, repeatedly, so he ordered every single town agency with a say on the matter to sign on. And every single one of them did.
“The Effros Stipulation” is not a single judgment, but rather hundreds of deed restrictions attached to the Greenwich High School Site Plan, as part of three Court Ordered Judgments and Stipulations handed down by Stamford Superior Court on July 22, 2003.
Each of the stipulated deed restrictions was approved by The Town of Greenwich, The Board of Selectmen, Greenwich Public Schools, The Board of Education, Planning and Zoning Commission, Zoning Board of Appeals and the RTM as part of the settlement. The Court ordered the defendants to vote to approve the stipulations, with the understanding the deed restrictions could not be overturned, and would be honored by the Town of Greenwich in perpetuity.
Following are some of the deed restrictions:
A minimum of 750 on-site parking spaces
A “dark school” from sunset to sunrise
A “green oasis” that must remain a wetlands in its natural state forever
No outside sanitation facilities–school must remain open whenever field is in use
Maximum number of days field can be used: 180
Maximum number of nights field can be used: 3
No structure can be more than 35 feet above grade level (except 4 light poles)
No additional variances permitted
No additional deed restrictions permitted without P&Z review
30 day notice via certified mail to abutting neighbors of all proposed site plan changes
