By Brian Lockhart
CT Post
Updated 5:15 pm, Saturday, July 6, 2013
BRIDGEPORT
-- For months the city was millionaire developer Manuel "Manny"
Moutinho's silent partner, quietly bankrolling the $400,000 driveway
Moutinho recently completed to his waterfront mansion in Stratford.
Now
Mayor Bill Finch's administration must engage in a very public battle
if it wants to save the 1,000-foot-long, 20-foot-wide gravel structure
from demolition.
Finch was already laboring to explain to the
City Council and taxpayers why the driveway was needed for runway safety
at Bridgeport-owned Sikorsky Memorial Airport when a judge Tuesday
dropped a bombshell.
Superior Court Judge Dale Radcliffe ruled
that Stratford erred in giving Moutinho a zoning variance to build the
driveway from Sniffen Lane, over Bridgeport-owned wetlands, to the
town's shoreline.
Radcliffe sided with neighbors who sued to stop installation and restore the wetlands.
Those
Breakwater Key condominium residents filed their lawsuit in September
after Moutinho obtained his building permits. Bridgeport was not a
defendant. But the Finch administration quietly assumed Moutinho's
permits in March, and hired his company -- Mark IV Construction -- in
April to install the driveway.
Moutinho and Bridgeport knew the risks of moving forward with the Breakwater suit pending.
"When
we stepped in to get the driveway moving and out of our way, one of the
concerns we had to look at was we're building at risk because there is
an appeal pending," Sikorsky Memorial Airport Manager John Ricci said
last month.
So if Moutinho and Finch don't want to be forced by
Stratford to tear the driveway up, they must act soon, and likely on two
fronts --in court and before Stratford's land-use boards.
Stratford Town Attorney Timothy Bishop said Radcliffe's decision is not final for three weeks.
"When
it becomes final, we'll revoke any approvals," Bishop said. "It's sort
of like the variance never existed. So they'll have to restore any
wetlands disturbed by what they did with this driveway."
But Moutinho can delay that process by asking the state Appellate Court to overturn Radcliffe's decision.
"I
don't see there being a strong likelihood this case gets overturned on
appeal," Bishop said. "(Radcliffe issued) a strong opinion. ... I don't
think personally there's a lot they're going to be able to do about it."
What an appeal will do is buy Bridgeport time to apply for a new variance from Stratford, Bishop said.
"Reading
the tea leaves, it seems like the smart play if you want the driveway
to exist, is for the city to come in and make its own application for
whatever permit it needs and really lay out sufficient legal grounds,"
Bishop said.
In other words, Bridgeport must introduce the
Sikorsky Airport runway safety project into the equation -- something
that was never done publicly when Moutinho applied for his zoning
variance last summer.
Radcliffe had to base his ruling solely on
the information available to Stratford land use officials when they
issued Moutinho's permits, and on any evidence presented at the June 3
trial.
None of that involved work at Sikorsky -- a $40 million,
mostly federally funded plan that has been in the works since a plane
crash two decades ago killed eight people.
Moutinho's gravel
driveway runs through a right-of-way Bridgeport granted him over airport
land. It replaces an old dirt driveway off Main Street, across from the
Sikorsky runway, also located in an airport right-of-way.
Moutinho
built his waterfront home in 2010 and, around that same time, got
permission from Bridgeport to relocate the right-of-way from Main Street
to Sniffen Lane. Then last summer Moutinho sought the zoning approvals
from Stratford for what was supposed to be a $200,000 driveway fully
paid for by the developer.
Moutinho and his representative, Nick
Owen, at the time said the dirt driveway was prone to flooding and state
environmental officials had ordered Bridgeport to abandon the original
right-of-way to restore the wetlands.
Radcliffe concluded no such order existed and Moutinho should have fixed the dirt driveway at his own expense.
Hearst
Connecticut Newspapers in early June first reported the Finch
administration paid for the new $400,000 gravel driveway for Moutinho
and circumvented competitive bidding rules to hire the developer to
build it.
Finch has since launched an internal probe after
learning from Hearst Connecticut Newspapers that Ricci -- who
spearheaded much of the driveway project -- is a longtime friend and
business associate of Moutinho's.
But the Finch administration
continues to insist that because Moutinho's original dirt driveway is in
the way of the Sikorsky project and the developer had not built the new
driveway, Bridgeport was obligated to do it for him.
And that somehow doubled the cost to $400,000.
And
the decision to not only assume Moutinho's permits, but to pay his
construction company to build the driveway, all stemmed from a need to
move quickly so the safety zone will be built by a federal deadline of
2016.
While it is possible these new arguments will help
Bridgeport and Moutinho salvage the driveway, it is unlikely Breakwater
Key residents will stand idly by.
Attorney Richard Saxl, who
represents the condominium association, said he is "in it to the end,"
as is Frank Johnson of Fairfield, who owns a boat slip at Breakwater
Key.
"Are we still going to fight it? Yeah, especially now we
have a well thought-out decision by the judge," Johnson said. "So
they're (Bridgeport) going to throw more money at attorney and legal
fees to defend something they shouldn't have to begin with."
A
longtime member of Fairfield's Zoning Board of Appeals, Johnson said he
has seen illegal projects torn down, and that's what should happen to
Moutinho's driveway.
"He should pay for it out of his own pocket and the city of Bridgeport should be reimbursed."
Staff Writer Daniel Tepfer contributed to this report.
Story and Photos: http://www.ctpost.com
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