Posted on 01/18/2007 4:58:26 AM PST by Puppage
(Stonington-WTNH) _ A playhouse outside a Stonington home is still standing strong, and that's a problem. The playhouse violates town law, but the owner has refused to remove it, earning her a shocking letter in the mail.
Martha Slater says the yearlong fight to save her daughter Chloe's playhouse has taken five years off of her life. "Pretty frustrated, very upset, and very threatened I felt too," she said.
On Saturday Slater received a letter from the Town of Stonington saying she was being fined $54,000 for zoning violations. A hefty price for a child's playhouse.
The Slaters say this playhouse is a playscape, which would be exempt from zoning regulations. But the town says it is a shed. In other words, a structure which is regulated under town zoning laws. The problem is the playhouse is too big for what the property size allows.
"We limit the amount of structure that a property can have," Jason Vincent from the Stonington Department of Planning said. "It's called the gross floor area - the amount of floor area any property is allowed to have. This property exceeds the gross square allowed."
Slater says she does not think it is fair that her next door neighbor Thomasina O'Boyle, who resigned from the zoning board last month, is allowed to keep her shed which was also put on her property without a permit years ago.
O'Boyle posted a permit on her door which was granted because that shed was there more than three years before the town found out about it.
"It's very subjective and I kind of feel like I didn't get a fair shake at anytime," Slater said.
Slater did apply for a variance, hoping the town would make an exception for her, but was denied.
"The same thing a cop says to me when he pulls me over for doing seventy-five -- slow down," Vincent said. "There's no relief. He doesn't have the authority. I don't have the authority."
Slater is scheduled to meet with the town again next month. The town has said it will drop the $54,000 fine if she removes the playhouse.
No private property rights, no freedom. Our great experiment has failed.
The power to tax is the power to destroy.
So a neighbor has a similar structure that also is "out of compliance", but gets a free pass through chrony-ism.
What ever happened to "equal protection under the law"?
OH - nevermind, we don't live in a country governed by constitutional law anymore, I forgot. Please forgive me.
There needs to be a limit to which someone can develop a lot, some developers / owners would have no problem going property line to property line with solid building and/or asphalt.
I give up where is this? City, state might help.
Stonington, CT.
Yes I knew the rules when I moved in but I didn't know they applied to MEEEEE
Stonington, CT. On the RI border.
How large is this playhouse?
I'll be a witness for her if she needs someone to vouch that her "structure" was already there for three years. wink
Nothing "happened" to it. It was always a myth, never existed.
Carolyn
I used to cover zoning board meetings for a newspaper in Colchester, CT. They take their zoning seriously in that state. If the IAEA could recruit some of the zoning enforcement folks from the CT River Valley, they'd not only have the mess in Iran and NK cleared up, but they'd proabably catch Luxembourg in the act!
I was thinking the same thing. I wonder what this playhouse looks like. Must be huge.
These sound like zoning rules which you agree to when you move to an area. I know this first hand when my neighbor built a huge 2 1/2 story garage next to our property. The guy was a builder and knew the rules, it was an in your face act.
No, they even try to meddle with me out here. I'm surrounded by trees and foliage, damned if they don't fly over and take pictures of everything visible from the air. It just irks the crap out of politicians when they can't control everything.
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