Please remember that everything on this WEBpage is NOT OFFICIAL...
UNOFFICIAL MAP OF LAND USE 1999, WESTON, CONNECTICUT, U.S.A.
Are we still "rural" (according to Census 2000)?  Click HERE to find out!   CT Plan of C&D 2005-2010 says we are rural (by density definition).

Landbank purchase (on map at left, aqua outline);  map at right is the sketch plan by "About Town" of our unofficial process for updating the Weston Plan of C&D! 

FIVE-YEAR REVIEW A BIT BEHIND...EVERYONE INVITED TO JOIN THE TOWN PLAN UPDATE TEAM! 
In analyzing land use change in Weston since 1999, two things become clear.  One, the Town continues to lose "vacant" properties (many protected by "farm and forest" classification over the years).  BUT...development of these properties comes with significant preservation of connecting parcels (for habitat, passive open space use).  This approach for Weston is not a new concept--the Aspectuck Land Trust has been trying to implement this principle since the Dominski-Oakrock Study (Weston Environmental Resources Manual of 1976).

However, it is in the present administration in 2004 that "landbanking" and active pursuit of easement linkages is coming to the fore.  We are presently reviewing how the Central Part of Town is to change - and will this take precedence over "landbanking" investments into the future...stay tuned!
 

BLOW UPS OF 1999 MAPS ABOVE:  MAP ON THE LEFT, ALL LAND USE CATEGORIES;  ON THE RIGHT, OPEN SPACE USES (SEE HERE FOR DEFINITIONS).

PROPOSED LANDBANKING BY TOWN OF WESTON:Special Town Meeting, January 9, 2003:  Town Meeting voters approved this action. Fromson-Strassler   gets a "yes" from both P&Z and Board of Finance (Special Town Meeting January 9, 2003);  P&Z says "yes" to both but Board of Finance says "no" to part of former Maurice Moore estate--then reverses itself and says "yes" after Town staff does more research and legal wording is changed by prospective seller...and Town Meeting agreed after discussion of both - standing count needed for Fromson-Strassler (not close when the votes were tallied);  voice vote all that was needed for Moore OK!


Possible impacts from this decision?  Later case on Global Warming sets stage for more vigorous regulation, we think!
Justices Divided Over Wetlands Protection;  High court's decision could lead to regulatory changes, more litigation
DAY
By Linda Greenhouse, New York Times News Service   
Published on 6/20/2006  

Washington — The Supreme Court on Monday came close to rolling back one of the country's fundamental environmental laws, issuing a fractured decision that, while likely to preserve vigorous federal enforcement of the Clean Water Act, is also likely to lead to new regulatory battles, increased litigation by property owners, and a push for new legislation.

With four justices on one side arguing for a sharp restriction in the definition of wetlands that are subject to federal jurisdiction, and four justices on the other arguing for retaining the broad definition that the Army Corps of Engineers has used for decades, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy controlled the outcome in a solitary opinion.

Kennedy said that to come within federal protection under a proper interpretation of the Clean Water Act, a wetland needs to have a “significant nexus” to a body of water that is actually navigable.

He then made clear, in his 30-page opinion, that whether such a relationship existed in any specific case was largely a technical and scientific judgment on which courts should defer to the federal regulators. The four parcels of land at issue in the case, all in Michigan, were likely to meet the definition, he said.

Environmental advocacy groups reacted to the decision, which sends the cases back to an appeals court, as if they had dodged a bullet, which in many respects they had. An opinion for four justices, written by Justice Antonin Scalia, would have stripped protection from many areas that federal regulators have treated as wetlands under the 1972 law.

•••••

Scalia's opinion, joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and by justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr., said the Army Corps of Engineers had stretched its authority under the Clean Water Act “beyond parody” by regulating land that contained nothing but storm sewers, drainage ditches and “dry arroyos in the middle of the desert.”

He said the agency had trampled on state authority by exercising a “scope of discretion that would befit a local zoning board.”

The only wetlands properly subject to federal jurisdiction, Scalia said, are those “with a continuous surface connection” to actual waterways. The waters to which the wetlands must be adjacent, he continued, are only those that are “relatively permanent, standing or flowing.” These are the only bodies of water that come within the statute's reference to “the waters of the United States,” he said.

On the other side was Justice John Paul Stevens, joined by justices David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer. Accusing the Scalia group of “antagonism to environmentalism,” Stevens said the Scalia opinion “needlessly jeopardizes the quality of our waters.”

Further, Stevens said, the Scalia group “disregards the deference it owes the executive” as well as “its own obligation to interpret laws rather than to make them.”

This, of course, was a sly reference to the slogan often heard in connection with conservative nominations to the federal courts. In effect, Stevens was accusing the Scalia group of judicial activism.

•••••

The case, which was argued in February and was the oldest undecided case on the court's docket, was clearly the subject of a major internal battle that undercut any image of good fellowship and unanimity on the Roberts court.

The chief justice himself wrote a brief concurring opinion, noting that “it is unfortunate that no opinion commands a majority of the court.” He added: “What is unusual in this instance, perhaps, is how readily the situation could have been avoided.”

It was not clear whether he was aiming this comment at Kennedy or at the Army Corps of Engineers, which he said had failed to respond properly to a Supreme Court decision five years ago that rejected federal jurisdiction under the Clean Water Act over isolated ponds visited by migratory birds.

The chief justice noted that the Army Corps had embarked after that decision on issuing new, more limited regulations, but had abandoned the effort. “Rather than refining its view of its authority in light of our decision,” he said, “the Corps chose to adhere to its essentially boundless view of the scope of its power.” He concluded: “The upshot today is another defeat for the agency.”

Given Kennedy's refusal to go along, the extent of that defeat was far from certain. At the least, the Army Corps of Engineers may now feel impelled to embark on a new rulemaking process, leading to a regulation that would incorporate Kennedy's “significant nexus” test.

Under that test, regulators need not show that a wetland is adjacent to, or connected with, a navigable body of water. Rather, it is sufficient to show that it is adjacent to a tributary that itself flows into such waters.

Kennedy said the Corps needed to be more specific in defining the tributaries that count for this purpose. He said it needed to identify those “categories of tributaries” that were “significant enough that wetlands adjacent to them are likely, in the majority of cases, to perform important functions for an aquatic system incorporating navigable waters.”

The current standard used by the Corps, he said, was too open-ended in permitting regulation of remote drains, ditches, and streams that did not affect “the integrity of an aquatic system.”

•••••

The impact of this approach will become clearer when the appeals court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit, in Cincinnati, revisits the two decisions that the Supreme Court vacated. With Kennedy agreeing that the appeals court needed to take a fresh look at the cases, there were five votes for a judgment to “vacate and remand.”

But as Stevens pointed out, one “unusual feature” of the judgment was that there were not five votes for the standard that the appeals court should apply. The judgments should be reinstated as long as the appeals court finds that Kennedy's test is met, disregarding the test proposed by Scalia, Stevens said.

The appeals court, in two separate cases, ruled against Michigan property owners in their battles with federal regulators. In the lead case, Rapanos vs. United States, No. 04-1034, John A. Rapanos, after being informed that three parcels he wanted to develop probably contained regulated wetlands, cleared and filled the land without obtaining a Clean Water Act permit.

The government brought criminal charges against Rapanos. He was convicted, and the Supreme Court denied review of his case in 2004. The case the court decided on Monday grew out of his appeal in a civil case the government brought against him, in which he faces millions of dollars in fines.

His property is as much as 20 miles away from water that is navigable in the traditional sense. But the parcels are within the drainage systems of Lake Huron and two navigable rivers.

In the second case, Carabell vs. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, No. 04-1034, the Army Corps denied a permit to a couple who wanted to fill part of their property in order to develop condominiums.

In both cases, the property owners challenged the jurisdiction of the Army Corps both under the Clean Water Act and under the Constitution, arguing that if Congress had conferred such broad jurisdiction in the Clean Water Act, it exceeded its authority under the Commerce Clause.

Scalia's opinion, without directly endorsing the constitutional attack, said the agency's interpretation of its authority “stretches the outer limits of Congress' commerce power.” Kennedy, however, said that wetlands as defined by his test “raise no serious constitutional or federalism difficulty.”

However the case unfolds from here, it was plain that something went awry in the court's handling of its most high-profile environmental case in years. Given the structure of the principal opinions, including their relative length and tone, it is possible that Stevens had initially controlled the case and, on the assumption that he had five votes on his side, had assigned it to Kennedy, who then strayed somewhat from the more categorical view of the Stevens four. Although he speaks only for himself, his opinion reads like a majority opinion, while Scalia's opinion reads like a dissent.