Stratford ZBA approves Eli Whitney parking expansion but rejects landscaping-islands waiver

On June 2 the Stratford Zoning Board of Appeals approved a variance allowing the Town of Stratford to expand the parking area at Eli Whitney Elementary School and exceed the local impervious-surface limit, but the board refused a separate request to waive required parking-lot landscaping islands.

The applicant, represented by architect Brian Snyder of Snyder Architects, told the board the project’s two main goals are to improve student safety and reduce congestion on Chickadee Lane by creating a controlled pickup/drop-off loop and adding parking. Snyder said the current condition forces children to walk far across the lot and that the proposed layout brings cars and students closer to the school entrance. “The project alleviates the congestion on Chickadee Lane and some of the surrounding steep streets,” Snyder said.

The application asked for two variances: a waiver of section 3.2.0.1c to allow impervious coverage to rise from the code limit of 40% (existing 46.5%) to a proposed 54.1%, and a waiver of section 6.8.0.11(2) to remove the requirement for regularly spaced parking-island landscaping. Snyder said the plan also adds stormwater capacity to benefit the school and surrounding neighborhood, and that GPIC Construction of Bridgeport submitted the low bid; the town has budgeted the project but the contractor price is only guaranteed for about 60 days.

Neighbors and nearby residents spoke sharply against parts of the plan during the public comment period. Scott Van Ayn of Arrowhead Place told the board he has lived beside the school for 24 years and disputed that the town had a hardship warranting additional parking. “That rear parking lot is less than half full on any given day,” he said, adding concerns about nighttime activity, property values and a gate that he said is frequently left chained open. John Farrell, another Arrowhead Place resident, said prior maintenance promises had not been kept and predicted the gate would not be reliably closed.

Snyder responded that the project would reduce existing light spill—that photometric measurements of the existing fixtures were up to about four foot-candles near the fence and roughly 3.2 between lights—and that the proposed fixtures and layout will reduce light to 0 at the property line. He also proposed operational controls, such as adding a gate off Chickadee Lane and making custodial staff responsible for locking the site after hours. “This project will fix his light pollution issue in his backyard,” Snyder said in rebuttal.

Kevin Fusilier of SLR International Corporation, the project’s landscape engineer, described the shift from high-pressure sodium lamps to LED fixtures that focus light downward and can be timed to switch off. The applicant also offered landscape mitigation: 14 new three-inch trees adjacent to the proposed parking area and around the playground.

After public comment and deliberation, the board split the two variance requests. The board found the parcel’s physical constraints and public-safety concerns sufficient to meet the statutory standard for a variance on impervious coverage and voted to approve that variance in a roll-call vote (yeas 5, nays 0). However, on the separate request to waive the landscaping-island requirement the board concluded the town’s general regulation — intended to break up large paved areas — should apply; members cited that islands are a standard requirement that would be required of other applicants and were not convinced the snow-plow/maintenance argument alone justified elimination. The islands waiver failed (yays 1, nays 4).

Board members said they will convey operational and safety concerns raised at the hearing to the Board of Education for follow-up. The applicant said trees will be warrantied for one year by the contractor and that the town will assume maintenance thereafter.

The approved impervious-area variance allows the project to proceed to whatever permitting and contract steps the town follows next; because the islands waiver was denied, landscaping islands — or functionally equivalent engineering measures to meet the landscaping objective — remain a requirement of approval. The board moved on to other business and adjourned at about 8:38 p.m.