Connecticut's Appellate Court has directed North Branford's Planning and Zoning Commission (PZC) to approve a site plan application for a 60,000-gallon bulk propane facility at 40 Ciro Road, which was denied by the PZC in 2017.  The court sided with plantiff and site plan applicant, 2772 BPR LLC, an entity formed by J.J. Sullivan Inc. of Guilford, in overturning a 2018 Superior Court denial of the plaintiff's appeal.

North Branford has entered a 20-day extension period to determine next steps and the court has scheduled an Oct. 19 status conference with both parties. Next week, North Branford's Town Attorney will meet in executive session with the PZC to review the court decision and explore the remaining options, Town Manager Michael Paulhus told Zip06/The Sound. The executive session is expected to take place Thurs. Oct. 7. Paulhus said he also expected the Appellate Court decision would be included as an item on the agenda of the next Town Council meeting, Tues. Oct. 5.

Paulhus also shared the following statement prepared on behalf of Town: "The Town believes that even when something is permitted as of right, a zoning commission should have the ability to balance all concerns, on site and off-site, to protect the public health, safety and welfare and to maintain a harmonious balance in land use."

The deadline to file a petition for certification with the Connecticut Supreme Court, should the Town of North Branford decide to do so, is October 25, 2021. A losing party can file a certification petition with the Supreme Court to request the Supreme Court review the decision of a lower court.

Zip06/The Sound also spoke with an attorney for 2772 BPR LLC, Jeffrey Beatty (Guilford), who is declining to comment on the matter at this time. 

In procedural history shared in court documents officially released Sept. 14, the Connecticut Appellate Court ultimately reversed a December, 2018 New Haven Superior Court decision which had denied an appeal by the plaintiff, 2772 BPR LLC, to overturn the PZC's 2017 decision. The opinion by Appellate Court Judge José A. Suarez agreed with the plaintiff's argument that the Superior Court erred in upholding the commission's "consideration of off-site traffic concerns, the preparedness of municipal services, and the potential impact on property values when conducting an administrative review of its site development plan application."

The site plan involves installing two 30,000 bulk propane storage tanks at 40 Ciro Road, which would become a distribution point for bulk propane deliveries by J.J. Sullivan Inc.

On March 16, 2017, the then-sitting PZC denied the site plan application, by a vote of 3-2. The close vote arrived after hours of deliberation and review, including heavy public input gathered over the course of a three-part public hearing during the month of March. At the time, the PZC vote closed a chapter on an application which had fueled community controversy since August of 2014, when an earlier-sitting PZC had approved a zoning text amendment change permitting bulk propane storage at 40 Ciro Road.

The controversial 2014 text amendment vote, coupled with 40 Ciro Road's ownership by a then-sitting Town Council member, Donald Fucci, fueled ample citizen outrage in Sept. 2014, when J.J. Sullivan Inc. first submitted an application to the Town's Inland Wetlands Watercourses Agency (IWWA).  However, due to lack of a quorum, the IWWA failed to decide on the application within a 65-day window of action required by state statute. Next, stalled by the IWWA's inability to vote on the application, Beatty appealed to the Dept. of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) in January 2015, asking DEEP to conduct a review for the needed wetlands permit.

As the DEEP review began, a grass-roots group, North Branford Citizens Against Bulk Propane Storage (NBCABPS), led by resident Chris Kranick, hired an attorney, Peter White (North Branford). Kranick then applied for a zoning text amendment application to place a 5,000-gallon cap and additional safety standards on future bulk propane facilities. The PZC approved the cap in March 2015, with Beatty cautioning the PZC that the cap could not be retroactively applied to J.J. Sullivan's 2014 application underway.  Nearly two years later, in February 2017, DEEP made its conclusions and told the Town to issue the required wetlands permit to the applicant. Within days, NBCABPS filed a law suit against the Town and Fucci, and also began the process for a potential temporary injunction to halt any decision made by the PZC on 40 Ciro Road. However, DEEP's decision started a 35-day clock, obligating the PZC to decide on the 2014 site plan development application with a vote by March 16, 2017.