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Sponsored by the CBA Planning and Zoning Section
About the Program:
(This program is available ONLY to municipal officials, board members, commission members, and staff).
The future of Connecticut’s communities will be shaped by its land use laws and regulations. Developers, neighbors, and preservationists all collide before municipal land use boards and commissions, advocating their particular interests and approaches. Each commission member regularly has to make critical decisions, all within the context of complicated statutory and case law.
This introductory level course will focus on topics of immediate concern to all municipal land use agencies, boards, commissions, and their staffs. The topics reflect both timely and practical situations confronting participants at every level of the municipal land use process. This course will provide a broad review of the municipal land use process including zoning, planning, zoning board of appeals, and wetlands issues. Members of municipal land use agencies, boards, and commissions, as well as municipal planners, enforcement officers, and engineers will benefit from this full day course.
Program Schedule
8:30 a.m. – 9:00 a.m. Registration
9:00 a.m. – 9:10 a.m. Welcome
Atty. Jacqueline O. Kaufman, Chair, CBA Planning and Zoning Section
9:10 a.m. – 9:40 a.m. Planning Commissions
Atty. Amy E. Souchuns, Milford
This session will cover powers of the planning commission, plan of development, statutory notice requirements, subdivisions and re-subdivisions, multi-agency approvals, reasons for denial, open space, changes in regulations, bonding requirements, conditional approvals, and mandating off-site improvements.
9:40 a.m. – 10:10 a.m. Zoning Commissions
Atty. Peter C. Herbst, Torrington
This session will cover enabling legislation, powers of zoning commissions and proper purposes and goals of zoning, the comprehensive plan, proper notices of hearings, designating and amending zoning districts, spot zoning, floating zones, the uniformity requirement, dependence upon other governmental agency action, rendering decisions, and publications of notices of decisions.
10:10 a.m. – 10:20 a.m. Break
10:20 a.m. – 10:50 a.m. Non-conforming Uses
Atty. Christopher J. Smith, Hartford
A general discussion of the origin, scope, and problems of non-conforming uses.
10:50 a.m. – 11:20 a.m. Special Permit and Site Plan Review
Atty. Brian R. Smith, Hartford
This session will cover statutory requirements of and distinction between special permit and site plan review and appeals from decisions on applications for special permit and site plan approval.
11:20 a.m. – 11:50 a.m. Zoning Board of Appeals
Atty. Dori L. Famiglietti, Rockville/Vernon
This session will cover functions of zoning boards of appeal, requirements for proper notice of the hearing, conducting the hearing and the procedure to be used, variances, legal requisites for hardship, the theory of confiscation, self-created hardship, and other statutory duties of the ZBA.
12:00 p.m. – 12:30 p.m. Lunch
Preview of the 2018 ZiPLeR Awards
Atty. Dwight H. Merriam, FAICP, CRE, Hartford
12:30 p.m. – 1:00 p.m. Wetlands Law and Procedure
Atty. Michael A. Zizka, Hartford
This session will cover a review of procedures of municipal inland wetlands and watercourse agencies, and how wetlands law impacts upon the zoning and planning process.
1:00 p.m. – 1:30 p.m. Conflict of Interest and Predisposition
Atty. Richard P. Roberts, Hartford
This session will cover statutory provisions on conflict of interest, rules governing predisposition and predetermination, court decisions on conflict of interest, drawing the line between cases where disqualification applies and does not apply, and procedural problems when a question of conflict arises.
1:30 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. Procedural Issues in the Municipal Land Use Process
Atty. Peter S. Olson, Bethel
This session will cover a review of statutory provisions and case law concerning administrative process, applications; conducting a public hearing; creating the administrative record, and making appropriate findings and conclusions to support decisions.
2:00 p.m. – 2:10 p.m. Break
2:10 p.m. – 2:40 p.m. Affordable Housing: The Municipal Perspective
Atty. Ira W. Bloom, Westport
This session will cover a review of an application filed under Section 8-30g of the General Statutes from the Planning & Zoning Commission perspective, including practical advice and a review of the relevant case law. Also included will be a discussion of the HOME Connecticut program, Public Act 07-04.
2:40 p.m. – 3:10 p.m. Things to Watch Out For: Religious Uses, Fair Housing/Disabled Persons and Outdoor Furnaces
Atty. Marjorie F. Shansky, New Haven
This session will cover a review of the implications of federal legislation on local zoning, particularly the Fair Housing Act and the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA); and state law considerations regarding religious expression and free speech issues.
3:10 p.m. – 3:40 p.m. Enforcement
Atty. Charles R. Andres, New Haven
This session will cover analysis and discussion of Connecticut law concerning enforcement through the zoning, planning and wetlands process.
3:40 p.m. – 4:10 p.m. Environmental Interventions
Atty. Janet P. Brooks, East Berlin
This session will cover interventions under Conn. Gen. Stat. Section22a-19 for the purpose of raising environmental issues: What they are, what they do, what you have to do when you get one.
4:10 p.m. – 4:30 p.m. Q&A