By Bob Bumcrot

Jennifer Pilbin hopes to pass her business on to the next generation.

On September 1 the Norfolk Planning and Zoning Commission (P&Z) conducted a second site visit to 119 Winchester Road, where owner Jennifer Pilbin has applied to operate a commercial rock quarry. The area contains good quality granite, some of it with quartz intrusions, suitable for various construction uses. The stone is to be pulled from outcrops from which the soil overlay has been removed, and loaded on trucks. Further processing, such as crushing or sawing to make a counter top, is not planned at the site.
P&Z members listened while Edward Jones, Pilbin’s recently divorced husband expertly loaded loose stone into a small truck and pulled fresh stone from an outcrop. Among others present were Pilbin’s lawyer Robert Fisher of Cramer & Anderson in Litchfield, David Donihue, who lives 90 feet from the site and Pilbin’s teenage son Logan. “I want to develop the quarry for Logan,” said Pilbin. “He took Masonry 1 at Regional 7 last year and is continuing with 2 and 3.”
“I never heard it this quiet,” said Donihue at the P&Z hearing later that evening. He noted that a much larger truck had been used in past operations, which together with other objections led to a cease and desist order from Zoning Enforcement Officer Scott Eisenlohr. This order was appealed to the Zoning Board of Appeals, which upheld Eisenlohr. That matter is now in the Connecticut Superior Court. The matter now before P&Z is a new application for a special excavation permit under Zoning Regulations Article X, Section 180-70.
The case before the Superior Court presents evidence that stone was taken from the general region for both private and commercial uses long before 1955, when it was purchased from John Mulville by Julius Pilbin, a Park Ranger living at Dennis Hill. For example, the stone wall along Route 44 by “The Frog” apartment building next to the library most likely came from this region. But the most relevant question seems to be whether there was a commercial quarry operation at the precise site now under consideration when Norfolk enacted zoning regulations in the early 1970s. On this matter, photographic and other evidence from Robert Bachman strongly indicates that there were no quarrying operations there at that time. Bachman, who now lives at Meadowbrook, lived at 115 Winchester Road for nearly forty years before selling the property to Donihue. “There was no quarry there,” he said, “it was a nice pretty little microclimate with trees and lady slippers.”
At the September 1 hearing on the new application, Pilbin and Attorney Fisher offered additional concessions on limited operating times and additional screening for both sound and view. Since these plans were not yet formalized, the hearing was continued to October. So far, according to the Selectman’s office, these hearings and related matters have cost the town $13,119 in attorney fees.