Settlement Reached On Cherenzia Housing Development Appeal

An appeal in Superior Court of the Stonington Planning and Zoning Commission’s decision to  has reached a settlement.

The settlement includes a modified so-called settlement site plan created out of the project developer and neighbors wish to reach a “mutual resolution.” The settlement site plan includes a number of changes, concessions and compromises.

A contentious aspect of the project concerned the blasting that will be required for ledge on the site, the settlement calls for pre-blasting surveys and well tests for neighbors as well as a stipulation that blasting will only be allowed from April to October.

While in many respects similar to the already required stipulations in the PZC plan approval, the settlement also includes a number of big concessions by developer Cherenzia and Associates including a $23,000 award for legal fees and expenses and open space areas now required to be conveyed to the town, its land trust or a similar land trust.

Although nearly 10-acres were already conveyed to the town last year as a then-stipulation of the first subdivision plan approved by the PZC in 2009, there are also a number of additional acres, a few near Greenhaven Road on the northern side of the development and off Mary Hall Road, that are to be designated as open space, never to be developed.  

The settlement calls for specific provisions for different areas of the site including the so-called ‘neighborhood #1’ area. There, the developer must erect a gazebo and a nature path, but also identify the area for ‘passive activity’ with a prohibition on construction of any kind, no excavation, and no destruction of trees, vegetation or wildlife habitat among other prohibitions.

Represented by attorney Mark Kepple, the immediate abutters that brought the appeal are James and Patricia Fink, who are joined by Neal and Michelle Madden, also immediate neighbors of the development slated for a 58-acre site at Greenhaven and Mary Hall roads. Neighbors Staats and Jane Abrams and Gordon and Edith Rose are also part of the appeal. The neighbors were but a fraction of the many residents that waged a .

The plan, which was developed for the Richard C. Panciera Remainder Charitable Trust, drew vociferous and organized opposition that included a , created its own traffic study, and gathered a several-hundred signature petition.

The PZC approved the plan albeit with a 19-point stipulation list, in mid-November after months of hearings and debate and deliberation.  Cherenzia attorney Thomas J. Ligouri Jr. said then that the developer would be “very willing” to find a resolution to the even then anticipated appeal.

Now, according to the seven-page settlement document, the PZC and the superior court must approve the modified plan.