Eureka Withdraws Affordable Housing Appeal

Long entrenched in multiple lawsuits against the town, the owners of 153 acres on Bennett's Farm Road appear to be ditching at least one of their major cases.

Eureka V, LLC, has filed a motion to withdraw a superior court appeal from 2007 protesting that what were then new changes to the town's zoning regulations would unfairly prevent the developer from building affordable housing on the site, court documents show.

Eureka V is a limited liability corporation of the New York-based Milstein Properties.

"I thought it was a bizarre case to begin with," said First Selectman Rudy Marconi, who has two cabinets and a large box in his office devoted to storing Eureka-related documents. Neither he nor Town Planner Betty Brosius knew why the developer decided to withdraw the appeal now.

The town's contentious history with Eureka dates to 1998, when the developer bought 613 acres of land on Bennett's Farm Road from IBM. The town took the 458 acres north of the road for open space via eminent domain in 2001.

Eureka sought to build affordable housing on the southern portion, an application that the Planning and Zoning Commission approved in 2008. Eureka then appealed that approval, saying it didn't allow them to build enough units. That case is still pending in housing court in New Britain.

There is also a federal court case pending alleging the town violated the federal Fair Housing Act by seeking to take the south parcel by eminent domain to prevent the developer from building housing open to families with children.

The appeal that is being withdrawn—according to the motion, it's because it's so similar to the pending federal case and Eureka wants to economize—was filed in the time between when the Planning and Zoning Commission approved a regulations update in March 2007 and when those new regulations would take effect that May. The developer submitted an affordable housing proposal for the land around the same time the appeal was filed.

The complaint stated that a language change in the regulations would keep Eureka from being allowed to build affordable housing in that area by making the zoning there ineligible for residential use. Planning and Zoning Commissioners felt there was still sufficient language in the revised regulations to remain in compliance with the state's affordable housing laws.

Here is the official notice as it appeared in the Planning and Zoning Commission's July 20, 2010 agenda:

Eureka V, LLC has filed a motion to withdraw the appeal, Eureka V, LLC v. Ridgefield Planning & Zoning Commission, Docket #DBD-CV-4007262S, which was an appeal of the decision to adopt the comprehensive new set of zoning regulations, effective May 1, 2007, and, specifically, the changes to the regulation pertaining to the Corporate Development District. The Court has ordered that public notice of the motion to withdraw appear on the agenda of the Commission prior to the court acting on the motion.