Where to now? FAR rules pose zoning dilemma

By Ryan Jockers
Staff Writer

December 16, 2002

Short of an election or referendum, what is the best gauge of public opinion? Some would say a vote by the town's 230-member legislative body, the Representative Town Meeting.

How, then, should the Planning and Zoning Comm-ission interpret the RTM's vote, on Dec. 10, in favor of a nonbinding resolution recommending the commission reconsider the way it controls how big a house can be?

The RTM passed a similar proclamation, a "sense-of-the-meeting" resolution, about four years ago, but with an entirely different message.

At that time, the RTM, reacting to public sentiment during a multi-year effort by the zoning commission to draft an updated version of a fundamental planning document, called on the commission to address the trend of houses being built too big for their neighborhoods.

The commission responded by strengthening the regulations it uses to control bulk -- floor area ratio -- and applying those limits to the larger residential zones where houses had been built without FAR restrictions.

Once the new regulations took effect, residents who lived on lots that were smaller than in their underlying zones, and those in what are called "conservation zones," came to realize the tougher FARs restricted their ability to expand their homes more than on regularly sized properties.

Lawsuits were filed, residents proposed their own FAR amendments and the zoning commission tweaked its regulations in the following years as public dissatisfaction with the commission's use of FAR seemed to grow.

But, as town officials and community leaders said this week, they did not know until Monday's RTM vote whether this perceived dissatisfaction was representative of the town's 61,000 residents or of the vocal neighborhood group, the Concerned Homeowners of Greenwich, that opposes the current FAR regulations.

The RTM passed the nonbinding resolution, which essentially calls upon the zoning commission to re-examine the situation, by a 2-to-1 margin of 119-54, with 13 abstentions. Selectman Peter Crumbine, who had sought a compromise between the neighborhood group and the town, said the vote was "as good a sample as we can get as to how people are thinking."

"That is the most democratic organization we have in town," he said, "they took a vote on a resolution and they have spoken, and when the RTM speaks, the town, the P&Z and the Board of Selectmen should listen."

But what did the RTM say? The resolution does not call for any specific action to be taken, nor is it binding. The zoning commission is not required to do anything. Instead, the RTM asked the commission to "define the problem" that led to the strengthening of FAR regulations in 1998, evaluate FARs' effectiveness and consider alternate ways to control bulk.

If the sense-of-the-meeting resolution the RTM passed in 1998 was taken by the zoning commission as a mandate to tighten its FAR regulations, should Monday's resolution be seen as a mandate as well? And if so, to do what?

"I don't interpret it as a mandate for a specific change or to throw it out at all," said RTM member Elizabeth Galt Hirsch, who worked with Crumbine on those unofficial negotiations and is vice chairman of the Land Use Committee. "The vote simply asked for more study."

The resolution was put forward by the Concerned Homeowners of Greenwich through a petition, and it was accompanied by a few pages of notes which were critical of FAR. The RTM passed an amendment, 97-84, to not endorse the accompanying notes.

"So what you have is a mildly-phrased, innocuous resolution that says 'address the issue of oversized houses and consider other options,' " said RTM member Franklin Bloomer, chairman of the Land Use Committee.

Paul Pugliese, chairman of the Architectural Review Committee and an outspoken critic of using FAR to control bulk, said if the 1998 resolution was a mandate to look at the issue then Monday's vote is a mandate to reevaluate the same issue.

"We've had a four-year experiment -- all that time we had the proposed FAR in place," Pugliese said. "And what happened during that time? Has it worked? Has it not worked? People still complain about houses, so maybe not . . . The RTM is saying there's a lot of unhappy people. We think it needs more study, and more thorough analysis."

The FAR issue has been described as convoluted and may seem irrelevant to the average Greenwich homeowner until, as Pugliese said, they decide to make an addition and go to the Building Department and find out how much square footage they can actually add to their home.

Floor area ratio is derived by dividing the amount of square feet in a house -- excluding, in some cases, portions of attic and basement space -- by the size of the property it is on. It is a zoning tool the commission has used to control bulk since the 1960s.

The tougher FAR regulations the commission adopted in 1998 were thrown out by a judge on a technicality -- a public hearing held on the matter was not properly noticed -- and the commission is trying to reinstate those regulations. Currently, there are no FAR limits in the 2- and 4-acre zones.

In April, the commission tweaked its FAR regulations by passing amendments determining how much space in attics and basements would be included in homes' floor areas. Attic space that is 7 feet or higher is included, as are portions of the basement, whether finished or unfinished, depending on how high the basement rises from the ground.

The zoning commission has included in its current FAR proposal regulations that would give additional building space to residents on "undersized" lots or in conservation zones. At its second public hearing on the proposal, on Tuesday, residents urged the commission to withdraw the plan, given the RTM resolution.

"They should take a breath at this point, relook at what community leaders have put forward," said RTM member Sam Romeo, chairman of District 12. "We have a golden opportunity to do it right."

The commission has closed the public hearing, and the chairwoman, Louisa Stone, said it will likely make a decision in early January.

It has been, and remains, the commission's intention to come up with other tools to limit construction of the "mega-mansions" that critics say are spoiling the town's character, Stone said. But since April, the commission has had to focus on addressing Judge Frank D'Andrea's decision to nullify the 1998 FAR regulations.

Regarding the RTM resolution, Stone said the commission defined the problem after listening to the public during the process of drafting the 1998 Town Plan of Conservation and Development. "The building of very large homes was something they didn't like," she said, "and, pure and simple, FAR limits the size of houses. I don't think anyone can dispute that."

Stone said that while the resolution is as near an indication of public opinion as can be gathered, it does not ask the commission to do anything that it is not supposed to do.

"They want us to do our job," she said. "We want to do our job. We want to do it right and effectively. We want to get on and deal with setbacks, height and lot coverage" -- other ways to limit bulk -- "and the same people who don't like FAR might not like setbacks and lot coverage, but we're not there yet.