ZBA Denies Holt Variances For Lords Point Property

Depending on who you speak to, Carol Holt and her husband Thompson Wyper are either the best neighbors or the worst.

“We’re not the evil they’re painting us as and they’re the patron saints of the neighborhood,” Wyper said.

Tuesday night the Zoning Board of Appeals denied two requests from the couple for variances to build, and rebuild on their controversial—and much litigated—Lords Point properties.

Holt said last month when the public hearing on their requests was first heard they wanted what they’ve always sought, to see their two parcels, one which supports a 1,600 square foot house they want to rebuild as a 2,200 square foot home and the other a very small  adjacent but not adjoining “lot” as “buildable.”

“This is a hardship,” Holt told the board last month; a ‘hardship’ as interpreted by the ZBA is required in order to grant a variance.

Holt and her husband split their time between California and Stonington; she attended the August hearing, her husband appeared before the board Tuesday.

“Yes, a hardship that my property is being treated differently than everyone else,” Holt said last month.  And a different property it is: the Holt parcels have been the subject of civil litigation, superior court rulings as well as a current federal civil rights case against the town. This is no run-of-the-mill zoning case, one at once simple and convoluted. 

When the couple came from California in 2005, they sought the opinion of zoning official Joe Larkin on the zoning status of a two parcel property they were interested in. At the time, Larkin provided them with letters that stated the site was a buildable lot that could accommodate a single family house. A neighbor refuted that assertion, took them to court and prevailed; a Superior Court judge said the lot was not buildable, that Larkin’s opinion was just that, a preliminary, advisory opinion that could not be relied upon.

The neighbor in question was the then chair of the ZBA, Thomasina O’Boyle. What followed over the next few years was vitriolic debate between the neighbors resulting in lawsuits, allegations of threats and the controversial “FU” that Holt painted on to a shed that faced the O’Boyle property.

And while the court declared the site unbuildable, Holt came back to the ZBA seeking the variance. She encountered plenty of opposition from some neighbors but not all. And, not all ZBA members either; board member Jack Guyol voted to approve the request for a variance to build on the undersized lot.

“That’s my idea of a hardship: Larkin’s misleading those people,” Guyol said.

But member Matthew Berger pointed out that it was a self-imposed hard ship by the previous owner of the property, which was passed on to Holt and her husband; the lot was not a buildable one.

Holt neighbor Claire Warren made her position clear: “Just let them build.”

“Whatever it is that would allow them to build…it has to happen. This whole fiasco is unconscionable,” Warren told the board.

Wyper said after the ZBA hearing that he and his wife have spent more than $300,000 in costs associated with the property and the litigation. He said they will likely appeal the ZBA decision.