Alliance response to Filing of Winter Club Application

RIDGEFIELD, CT, July 30, 2018 - The Peaceable Neighborhood Alliance (PNA) is disappointed to learn that the Ridgefield Winter Club has decided to proceed with an application for a Special Permit as a Private Club in their RAAA (3-acre zoned) residential neighborhood. The nursery that currently resides at 340 Peaceable was grandfathered as a "pre-existing use including: nursery, garden center, landscaping or related uses"; in essence because Pinchbeck Nursery had been there since 1903. It has been a legal, non-conforming use, which means that after the nursery/landscaping business closes or “goes away” the property would revert to its intended conforming use as residential 3-acre zoning.

“The neighborhood is zoned residential – NOT commercial and never has been. The Ridgefield Winter Club is an afront to the original, intended town-planning vision and to the neighbors of 340 Peaceable Street” states Jeff Hansen, Spokesperson for PNA. “This neighborhood is simply nature separated by sporadic housing, which you can see from aerial photography quite easily. The peace and tranquility in this section of our town is what has drawn its residents here. We chose to give up town amenities of water, town septic service, and proximity to shops and restaurants in order to live in a quiet, more rural setting. A facility with a bar, restaurant, bowling alley and outdoor hockey rink including 40’ light poles, loud speakers, goal buzzers, crowd noise and 96 parking spaces does not “fit in” and drastically alters the neighborhood deliberately chosen by the current homeowners. What sounds like a fun, expensive, Private Club would be appropriate and welcome in a commercial district.”

Matt Grossman of the Alliance still has unanswered questions. “After almost a year and a half of living under this looming threat, we still don’t know the cost of a membership or who the financial investors and the builder of this project are.”

Just last January, after the Commission voted down the application from the Ridgefield Boys & Girls Club to expand the CBD into their property, Planning & Zoning Chairwoman Rebecca Mucchetti stated “we can't allow commercial intrusion into our residential zones”. Consequently, PNA members are confident that the Commission will not approve an application that is so clearly a commercial business and a drastic disruption to their neighborhood. “It would set a glaring precedent indicating that no residential neighborhood in Ridgefield is safe from commercial intrusion” said Hansen.

Ridgefield Neighborhood Preservation Alliance spokesperson, Catherine Neligan echoes the concern stating that “while a private club is an allowable Special Permit in a residential neighborhood, we do not believe that the Winter Club qualifies as a private club. Private recreational clubs like Westmoreland, West Mountain Estates, Mimosa and Pleasant Valley clubs are all acceptable because they serve their immediate neighborhoods and are non-profit. Most of our neighboring towns including Wilton, New Canaan and Darien would not permit the opening of a for-profit club such as the Winter Club in their residential neighborhoods based on their specific definitions of allowable “private clubs” for exactly those two reasons. Without a definition for “private clubs” in our zoning regulations (or exclusion of for-profit enterprises), if our P&Z Commission were to approve the Winter Club as an allowable business in a residential zone, then what happens next? The house next door to yours could be the location of someone else’s new and lucrative business idea. This sets a risky precedent. If Ridgefield residents don’t speak up now, they may regret that decision in the future.”

Jeff Hansen states that “I would really just like to work and go home to spend time with my family. That's what I signed up for when I moved to Ridgefield. Unfortunately, that's not in the cards right now. We find ourselves in a position in which we must fight to protect the quality of life for our families, our neighbors and all of Ridgefield’s residents, and we do so at our own personal toll and financial expense. It just isn’t right.”

Go to www.peaceableneighbors.com for more info