Greenwich Homeowners in Conservation Zones
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Are Taxpayers Falling for This FAR House of Cards? I applaud the editorial published by the Greenwich Times after the Floor Area Ratio proposals were passed on Nov. 17th and agree that the hasty passing of the regulations will probably cause further problems for the town. Opposition to the regulations was significant at the public hearings and excellent points were raised by taxpayers at both hearings and yet none were looked into. Many homeowners commented that the Commission did not want to listen and was only holding the hearings to meet public notification procedures. For the Chairman and Vice Chairman of the RTM’s Land Use Committee to come out in this paper using slogans to support the FAR regulations and identifying the opposition as "vested interests" is a low blow. Every homeowner in town has a vested interest in the value of their property and to see it taken away in less than a month by special interests within the town government is frightening. Whether FAR can or will even solve the problem of "mega houses" will be seen in the future but the Commission has not produced or referenced one study or piece of data showing that FAR’s control mega houses. I looked through pictures gathered by the Planning and Zoning office of what people consider mega-houses and it looks like few if any of them would have been stopped by the current regulation. I also looked at the houses that have been created as nonconforming in the four acre zone under the new regulation. Presumably these would have been the ones stopped if they were being built today. In my area these were mostly old beautiful farmhouses that have several outbuildings and stables. I consider these to be the meaning of back country and not the definition of mega-houses. The step that was missed is the definition of the problem and studying all possible solutions. By defining the problem thoroughly is the only way we can tell if the solution will work or if enacted is having the desired effect. Instead of defining the problem slogans are used such as "in your face houses". This is wide open to interpretation. FAR’s in Greenwich were put in place in some zones many years ago and it can be reasonably assumed that the tools of planning and zoning have made progress since then. Just the fact that the FAR’s that were already in place were significantly modified in this new regulation leads one to believe that they were not working as desired. To then broaden the application of this tool that is not working to the two and four acre zones appears to be overreaching with an outdated tool. Studies that were done by the Town Planner used data admitted to be "inaccurate" at the Nov. 10th hearing. Yet over a year was spent using taxpayer dollars analyzing inaccurate data in support of the proposed regulations. If this regulation required waiting until the more comprehensive GIS system is in place to accurately define the problem and then look at a variety of solutions then that is what should be done |