LTE: It's Done — Settlement Reached In The Porsche Dealer appeal

The following Letter to the Editor was written by Kathy Braun, who is a member of the Fairfield Town Plan and Zoning Commission:

To the Editor,

The development of 2190 Post Road (the old Exide Battery site has been resolved. An appeal of the TPZ Commission's denial of a Porsche/Penske dealership has been stipulated by unanimous vote of the TPZ to accept an offer by the developers, for more land as a buffer to Mill River.

Last year the TPZ denied the development proposal for a Porsche dealership, and it went to Court on appeal, and that appeal will now end, and the property can be developed once the Court approves the stipulated settlement.

As part of the litigation settlement, the applicant (Penske/Porsche dealer-repair facility owners and operators) has offered about 7,900 sf of added land to the Town as an easement for native plantings and buffer to Mill River- this part of Mill River is around 900 feet from the upper portion of Southport Harbor at Harbor Road.

An easement defining the land and the use of the easement - (no skaeborarding, floatation devices, undue noise, etc.). The public will not be able to go into the river from this area, but will have visual access. The relative responsibility of the Town and the Developer are spelled out in a document to be recorded on the Town of Fairfield land records in the Town Clerk's office, once the stipulated agreement is approved by the Court.

After decades of severe lead pollution on the 6 acre parcel of land and the lower 2 miles of Mill River that are tidally influenced, and another 37 years of cleanup of the land and Mill River, with collaborative efforts between the Town, DEEP, Exide, FairPLAN and MRWC, as well as 22a-19 environmental interventions by FairPLAN, Town of Fairfield Conservation Commission, Harbor Management Commission, Shellfish Commissions and Mill River Wetlands Committee, the river was certified by DEEP about 5 years ago as being able to be developed.

A prior proposal was presented to TPZ as a 'concept review', for a large mixed-use development and warehouse- this did not receive positive feedback and was not pursued by the property owners. Instead in 2024, the Porsche dealership was proposed. Issues including lack of harmony with the area, the desire for a mixed use development, concern over stormwater runoff with a very narrow buffer to Mill River led to a majority of commissioners including myself to deny the proposal.

The applicants then filed an appeal in Superior court. There are generally only 2 ways to end a court case- by voluntary settlement or by Judicial decision. There is a great deal of uncertainty and thus risk in waiting for the court to rule.

As with any voluntary settlement, both sides compromise and neither generally gets everything they originally hoped for. In exchange, the parties get what is acceptable, and the result is known, because court cases can go either way. I don't agree with the article that we would not have prevailed in Court. That being said, it is impossible to know what would have happened, and if the Town lost the case, Mill River would have only half the buffer the Town now has been afforded.

The settlement stipulation provides what I consider the minimal requirement for protection of Mill River and Southport Harbor, with legal flexibility to add protections in the future, so I agreed to this compromise, as did my Zoning and FairPLAN collegue, Alexis Harrison.

I had wanted water quality testing and removal of the metal bulkhead and restoration of the shoreline, which was recommended by MRWC and Tom Steinke, former Conservation Director who was involved with the Mill River and its remediation thoughout his tenure from 1971 to 2014 when he retired. After that, former Conservation Director Brian Carey led the effort to successfully ensure the higher level of clean up of MIll River, which was a years-long process.

There will be about a 100' buffer between the commercial fenceline (to the left of Martel restaurant) and the water's edge, from the Post Road back to the Metro North railroad tracks. This will enable more native plantings, room to add biofiltration swales and raingarden in the future if needed, and more wildlife habitat.

There will be 5 parking spaces for the public to visit the Town easement area. Osprey, bald eagle, herron, egret and even bobcat have been observed in this portion of Mill River between the Metro North Rairlroad tracks and the Post Road. There is a restricted shellfish bed in this area of Mill River, so hopefully that can be restored.

A gazebo was suggested but that will not be built, based on Conservation Director Tim Bishop's desire for less structures for less disturbance in the buffer Mr. Bishop was instrumental in helping to guide the commisison to a reasonable settlement. Instead of the gazebo, an obervation platform and walkway will be built to keep the area as natural as possible.

Mr Dilley of MRWC suggested moving the walkway further from the river, and also enabling he walkway to be both pervious with capability for handicap access. The Town Conservation Director will decide an exactly what and where within the almost 1 acre easement the low impact public access structures will be installed.

Water quality testing of the river before, during and after construction was not part of the agreement and hopefully a collaboration of the Town and MRWC will enable that to happen. The commercial developers will retain responsibility for the drainage structure- pipe and riprap and discharge into Mill River as well as the metal bulkhead that will remain at water's edge. A general DEEP permit will be required for the stormwater discharge.

The input from, and decades of work on this most important of our coastal resources must be acknowledged including leadership, and collaborative effort from Tim Bishop, current Conservation Director, Brian Carey, former Conservation Director, Tom Steinke, former Conservation Director, Annette Jacobsen former Assistant Conservation Director, Geoff Steadman, Harbor Management Commission director, the late Mary Von Conta, former HMC chair, Jon Dilley, Mill River Wetlands Committee director, Robert Bilek, former Shellfish Commission chair, my colleagues and environmental leaders at FairPLAN including Joy Shaw (also founder of MRWC), Mary Hogue, Alexis Harrison, Jan Reber, Linda Snelham-Moore, along with other Town residents, and many staff over the years at DEEP including Don Gonyea and Carolyn Fusaro, and Ken Money of Exide, in whose honor a memorial tree was planted a few years ago just up river from the site.

I also greatly appreciate the engagement of First Selectman Bill Gerber in the resolution of this matter so the Town can move forward, and former First Selectman Mike Tetreau, under whose leadership the Town intervened into the DEEP hearing in 2013 to ensure a higher level of cleanup. State Senator Tony Hwang has been fully engaged and a great support for at least a decade in the environmental cleanup as well as the current effort to protect of the river.
We also must acknowledge that the Penske/Porsche entities voluntarily gave up land that they had designed into their development, and this is much appreciated because it could have gone another way in Court. Also, it should be noted that in an industrial zone a number of other uses could have resulted and this is a known quantity.

All of the efforts of so many for so long, has as culminated in the preservation of about the 100' wetlands buffer onto the Exide land that has been reflected on the survey for decades and now has come to fruition- this is a number that we should be thinking about whenever we develop in the coastal area, and has now been achieved as a permanent solution on the Exide land.

In sum, this is a momentous event, which requires some reflection to appreciate that the long and torturous history of lower Mill River has been resolved in the Town's best interest- providing a balance of commercial development and environmental protection.

Thank you all,

Kathy Braun