Wilton’s Planning and Zoning Commission kicked off 2025 with a grab bag of new year priorities. Some of the issues covered at the commission’s first meeting of the year were business as usual, including the selection of a new member for the Architectural Review Board/Village District Design Advisory Committee, a vote on a long-lingering application, and discussion around how to move forward on updating signage regulations.
But the commissioners also circled back to the continued — and nagging — debate around the legality of integrating more public comment into commission procedures and how much general opinion P&Z members themselves were at liberty to express. On this question, the commission has not come to much agreement, even after a training with the town’s attorney.
A New Member for Wilton’s Design Authorities
After a quick announcement that two applications originally expected to go to public hearings this week would be continued to Monday, Jan. 27, the commissioners went into executive session to interview four candidates for the Architectural Review Board/Village District Design Advisory Committee. They would later vote to appoint Trevor Huffard as a member of VDDAC. Huffard currently serves as an alternate at the Zoning Board of Appeals. Due to town regulations, the Board of Selectmen must vote to finalize his accompanying appointment to ARB.
A New Strategy for Updating Town Regs
The Commission also heard an update from Town Planner Michael Wrinn about the request for proposals (RFP) to update Wilton’s signage regulations, one of the more outdated elements of the town’s zoning code. Only two responses to the RFP came in, each pegging the project at around $68,000, a figure that Wrinn called, “very, very high.” After several commissioners agreed with that assessment, Wrinn proposed that rather than go ahead as planned with a rewrite of the signage regulations on their own, the town instead bid out a project to update the code overall.
He estimated the project to cost around $150,000, based on discussions with nearby towns like Stratford, which recently went through a similar process. Chair Rick Tomasetti clarified that the updates would not necessarily be changes to the zoning but rather changes to how the code is written and presented. Wrinn also proposed that the Commission postpone starting new master plans for Cannondale and Georgetown to deal with this project. This suggestion has the benefit of leaving additional time for the Historic Districts and Historic Properties Commission to conduct its anticipated study of Cannondale.
A New Understanding of Membership Math at the Lake Club
One application that has lingered for nearly two years was concluded on Monday. The Lake Club’s plans to convert existing tennis courts to pickleball courts revealed that the recreational club long ago exceeded its allowed number of members. Its permit from the town restricts membership to 300 families, due to the club’s residential location on Thayer Pond Rd. Several nearby residents — most of them Lake Club members themselves — testified to P&Z about a noticeable increase in volume and activity at the site recently. As the hearings continued, the Commission learned that the Lake Club had begun converting family members aged 65 and older to a new category of “senior members,” which they omitted from the membership tally submitted to the town. The actual membership of the Lake Club now stands at 355 households. As a result, the P&Z Commission rejected the club’s application to allow additional activity on the site by creating dedicated pickleball courts.
And One Nagging, Unanswered Question
It wasn’t all new business, however. One commissioner brought up a request made last year that Town Counsel provide more legal justification for the policy behind P&Z’s limited public engagement process.
On Oct. 28 of last year, Wilton Town Counsel Peter Gelderman joined the Planning & Zoning Commission to discuss legal best practices for commissioners communicating with the public. The training was originally scheduled at Tomasetti’s request, seemingly in response to a Wilton 411 Facebook post in which Commissioner Mark Ahasic shared a GOOD Morning Wilton article announcing a public hearing for the Kimco redevelopment. Ahasic also replied to a member of the public who asked where to find Zoom link to participate in the meeting.
“I would like people to be reminded of how our procedures work,” Tomasetti said on July 22. “I would specifically like to remind people how our communication works and how our obligations to the applicants work and what we should be doing in the public realm, specifically related to posting things on social media. We have to square this away immediately,” he said.
In the time that passed between Tomasetti’s call for a training and the actual discussion with Town Counsel last fall, Commissioner Ken Hoffman requested that a second topic be added.
“I would like Counsel to address whether we can have once a quarter or once every six months, a meeting just taking public input into the planning process for Wilton,” Hoffman said on Oct. 15. “I think that people don’t think they’re listened to.”
Referring to the oft-cited threat that a more open dialogue with residents could leave the town exposed to lawsuits by developers, he added, “Sometimes when attorneys address this stuff, they’re giving us an opinion without it being backed up by case law or things that actually have ever happened… are they being cautious or is there case law? I’d like them to come in having done some research, as opposed to just saying: this is how we feel about it.”
Tomasetti directed Wrinn at the time to, “Make a note of that, get that to Attorney Gelderman so he comes with that info.”
However, when Gelderman joined the Commission for a discussion two weeks later, he had not found examples of prior cases in which holding an open hearing for the public to speak on general development topics resulted in a lawsuit against a town. Still, he urged the Commission to avoid this kind of public engagement.
“I think [open public hearings] open the door for [lawsuits], but I haven’t seen one,” he said. He would later clarify that he only spent 15 minutes on research, at Wrinn’s direction. At last night’s meeting, Wrinn explained that the Commission would need approval from First Selectman Toni Boucher to request that Gelderman spend additional time on any substantial research project — incurring fees that would impact the town’s retainer.
Still, Hoffman expressed frustration that Gelderman had not provided any case law as requested and summarized the message of Gelderman’s presentation as “Don’t do anything.”
Vice Chair Melissa-Jean Rotini replied that Gelderman could not find case law because Hoffman had asked him “to prove a negative.” Hoffman had asked for examples of prior cases where a listening session with the public led to a successful lawsuit against a town.
Wrapping up the topic, Hoffman said he remained fuzzy on what legally puts the town at risk. He drew attention to comments Gelderman made during that Oct. 28 meeting discouraging the commissioners from even sharing viewpoints on planning and zoning matters as candidates during elections.
Gelderman had cautioned the commissioners that, in his opinion, even responding to candidate surveys organized by the League of Women Voters on their views about planning and zoning matters facing the town before being elected to the Commission posed a potential legal risk for the town. He said responding to such a survey was, “thorny at best.”
“It’s always better when you’re running for office to be a politician and not give an answer,” Gelderman said on Oct. 28. “Be as vague as possible.”
“Doesn’t the public have the right to elect people who represent views they want to have represented?” Hoffman asked him.
Gelderman then clarified that comments like, “I’m generally in favor or against commercial development in Cannondale” would likely be on safe ground legally.
Monday night’s discussion concluded without a next step for the Commission to gain any further clarity on legally reasonable ways to engage with the public outside of public hearings pertaining only to specific applications.
Looking Ahead
The next Planning & Zoning Commission meeting is scheduled for Monday, Jan. 27. The meeting will likely include a public hearing on the Toll Brothers’ 208-unit multifamily development next to the Wilton Train Station. Due to P&Z’s public hearing rules, public comment is not permitted during a meeting until the complete conclusion of the applicant’s presentation. Depending on how the presentation and commissioner dialogue progresses, this could take place at the same meeting at which the hearing is opened or at a meeting weeks or months in the future.
Over-caution by lawyers without evidence. (This is why you have to listen to “if this is a medical emergency, please hang up and dial 911” when you’re trying to reach your podiatrist.) It isn’t good for our town or our country. Wilton should have more public hearings on development.