New public hearing to be held on August 29 at 6:30 p.m.

By Wiley Wood

The town was served a summons on August 8 in a suit brought by Joseph Stannard against the Norfolk Planning and Zoning Commission.

The suit appealed the commission’s recent approval of a site plan application for converting the building at 6 Station Place into a convenience store and deli. The building’s owner, The Norfolk Foundation, and the store’s owner-operator, Ryan Craig, doing business as Four Winds Enterprises, were also named in the suit.

Stannard owns the gray wooden barn directly behind 6 Station Place. The two buildings are very close to each other, with one corner of the Stannard barn, which Stannard’s lawyer has referred to as a showroom, seeming to jut across the property line to within a few inches of 6 Station Place.

In earlier hearings, held in June and July, Stannard objected to the exterior mechanical equipment for the proposed Berkshire Country Store. Along the back wall of the building, between the barn and 6 Station Place, the plans called for a set of condensers to cool the walk-in refrigerator and freezer, four propane tanks, and an air intake fan. A roof-mounted exhaust fan would vent the stove and griddle.

The Planning and Zoning Commission approved this plan over Stannard’s objections at its last hearing on July 19, prompting Stannard’s lawsuit.

In an attempt to forestall the suit, the building’s owners presented the commission a new plan at the P & Z’s regular meeting on August 9, providing significant remedies to Stannard’s objections. The condensers were removed from the exterior back wall of the building and placed in the basement. The air intake fan was also placed inside the building, and the number of propane tanks was reduced from four to two.

In a further concession, the exhaust fan was moved across the ridgeline from the back of the building to the front of the roof.

A drawing presented by Samuel (Pete) Anderson, president of The Norfolk Foundation, showed the fan as a circular metallic construction capping a short chimney. Designed to send a column of exhaust high into the air, the fan would be barely visible above the ridgeline to a person on Stannard’s property, according to Anderson, but plainly visible from the street.

The town’s village district consultant, Glenn Chalder, reviewed the latest drawing and found that putting the chimney on the street side of the rof was not consistent with the overall character of the village. The commission is free to accept or reject his advisory opinion.

Anderson, for his part, regrets the delay in opening the store but concedes that Stannard’s objections have actually led to an improved appearance for the building. As to the exhaust fan, says Anderson, “we will put it wherever the P & Z tells us to do it.”

The Planning and Zoning Commission’s public hearing, its third on the conversion of 6 Station Place, is scheduled for August 29 at 6:30 p.m. at Town Hall.