Legacy Theatre Gets Green Light

It was a drama worthy of a new play, the long, often contentious story of trying to restore and re-open a dormant theater in Stony Creek. At one point it appeared that everyone would have to face off in Superior Court in New Haven in what was described as a protracted legal battle that was scheduled to start next month.The final climax, a fight over parking spaces, was resolved by the chair breaking a tie vote.

These events unfolded at a meeting last week of the Stony Creek Association (SCA). Before it ended, the SCA board voted 6 – 5 to work out a stipulated agreement with the Legacy theater, with a group of abutting co-plaintiffs new to the table and with the town of Branford. After two long years of mediation, the reality of a new Legacy Theatre arising from the old Puppet House in Stony Creek appears to be in sight.

When? That’s not clear. But what is clear is that an agreement in principle has been reached, an agreement that overcame many obstacles, including the toughest one of all: parking spaces for abutting neighbors who live on Thimble Island Road next to or across from the theater. This last scene, complete with the parking spots (see sketch above), unfolded at an SCA meeting at the Willoughby-Wallace Library in Stony Creek. About 50 residents attended. 

The abutting neighbors broke last April from the SCA and hired their own attorney, Mark Branse of Branse & Willis LLC of Glastonbury. As it turned out the primary issue for Branse and the abutters, who are called co-plaintiffs, was parking, specifically designated parking spaces on Thimble Islands Road for three neighbors. The parking places were granted for as long as the theater exists there, one of the co-plaintiffs told the Eagle. 

If the SCA did not accept a settlement its alternatives were grim, Dan Bullard, the chair of the SCA, told the audience. ​“Either the court will approve the prior Fit Up Permit or send the issue to Planning and Zoning.” If the Fit Up Permit is approved, ​“we the Stony Creek Association and the co-plaintiffs are done. If the issue is sent to Planning and Zoning, I believe the majority of the accommodations already mediated will be out the window. I believe parking will not even be on the table. Therefore, I believe, we the Stony Creek Association, and the co-plaintiffs have nothing to gain by continuing the legal process.” 

The Puppet House History

The Legacy Theatre group, with artistic director Keely Baisden Knudsen at the helm, purchased the Puppet House property at 128 Thimble Islands Road in March 2013 with the intent of opening a repertory theater.

The venue was built in the early 1900s as a site for silent movies, and later became a famous summer theater featuring Orson Wells and Sinclair Lewis. It served as a girdle factory in the 1950s. The property was purchased in 1961 by Grace Weil, and served as both a puppet museum and a stage for Sicilian puppet performances by her son, the late Jim Weil, and his partner, the late Sal Macri. The building was shuttered by town officials in 2008 for safety violations and fell into disrepair. Weil died in 2012.

It took the SCA, the Legacy and now the new co-plaintiffs a total of two years to achieve the settlement, which is in the process of being drawn up, according to Branse.

In the end it came down to seven designated parking spaces, four for the theater and three for the residents, Branse said in an interview yesterday. They would be reserved for the three families from 4 to 8 p.m., when the theater’s patrons are arriving for a performance. 

Five members of the Stony Creek Association board were not happy with the idea that specific parking spaces for abutting families would be provided. Two of these members, Sam Kirby, chair of the mediation team and Jake Greenvall, a member of the team, had spent endless hours arriving at solutions for issues posed by the arrival of an active theater in a small community. In the end they voted against the final agreement.

If an agreement in principle had not been reached, the abutters, the Stony Creek Association, the Legacy Theatre and the town of Branford would be forced to pursue the appeal, an appeal that began after the town’s Zoning Board of Appeals upheld the town’s zoning enforcement officer’s decision to grant a so-called Fit Up permit on June 5, 2014. Even if the SCA now wanted to pull out of the appeal, they may have been stopped, especially if the association decided to reject the co-plaintiffs plan to settle. 

The original Fit-Up permit would have allowed the Legacy to use the theater for parties, rentals, weddings, and other events. But over nearly two years of court-ordered mediation, the SCA and the legacy and the co-plaintiffs arrived at major changes in the operation of the theater.

MOU

In July, the SCA and the Legacy Theatre approved a memorandum of understanding, (MOU) an agreement that outlined the types of functions for the theater space, including plays, musicals, poetry readings, concerts, art classes, and civic events. The theater will not be used for rap concerts, heavy metal concerts, weddings, or parties. Hours of operation were established, including a decision that the theater ​“will be open to the public no more than 150 days per year.” No alcohol will be served in side the theater. 

The three-page ​“Memorandum of Understanding” was the first formal step in what had become a long, contentious battle among neighbors who found themselves pitted against one another. The undercurrent of dismay and conflict was evident in comments from Bullard who before the July vote proposed that the SCA withdraw entirely from the whole process.

The MOU resolved the larger parking issues and the shuttlebus services but the parking spaces outside the homes of the abutters remained unsolved. So Branse and Legacy attorneys worked on trying to figure that out. At one point Legacy offered the abutters spaces in their parking area, but the abutters turned Legacy down.

“We knew if we did not have a settlement by Oct. 31, then we would have to return to court to resume the appeal,” Branse told the Eagle in an interview…. We were still talking and hoping to settle it.” Had a settlement not been reached, the agreed-to changes for the theater’s operation would not have survived.

Enter Town Attorney

At the meeting last week Branse (standing) said he had spoken by phone with Bill Aniskovich, town attorney, earlier in the day. Aniskvoich told Branse that if the board agreed in spirit to accept the seven parking spaces then the town would sign on to becoming a party to a final stipulated judgment. As a party, the judgment is binding on the town. The judge overseeing the case will sign off on the stipulation. This was news to a number of members of the SCA board who clearly had been kept in the dark by the co-plaintiffs and the town attorney. 

What Aniskovich did not want to do was to pit different factions against one another; he did not want to put the town in the position of taking sides. ​“If the SCA agrees with seven parking spaces, we can walk out of this room tonight with this totally resolved,” Branse said, explaining the town attorney’s concern. Lawyers for Legacy and the town did not attend last week’s meeting.

A Final Vote

And that is how the play ended, in the what was a dramatic third act climax. 

The SCA board consists of 11 voting members. When the vote was taken on the new parking arrangement, an arrangement reserved in perpetuity for the abutters, five board members voted in favor and five against.

When it appeared that the vote was heading to a tie, Pete DaRos, a board member, decided to vote with the opposition, saying he would leave it to Bullard, the SCA chairman, to make the final decision.

Bullard broke the tie, casting his vote for settlement even though he said he agreed with several dissenters who objected to family designated parking places on a public road.

“There was and is strong resistance to allowing individual parking spaces on a public street. I am against it, too. But I am more in favor of ending this legal argument, one that has divided our community.” (Bullard, center, is seen reading his remarks.) 

Those voting with Bullard were Jim Walker, Mark Richter, Bob Babcock, Laura Barr, and Christine Chiocchio. Those against included Pete DaRos, Sam Kirby, Jake Greenvall, Ted Ells and Sandy Fischer. Kirby, Greenwall and Greg Ames, a non-voting officer-member of the board, had worked hundreds of hours as the mediating committee.

Bullard told the Eagle afterward that he was persuaded by the analysis of Laura Barr, a board member. ​“She said special circumstances deserve special accommodations. And this is a special circumstance,” he said. Bullard said he wanted to end the discord within Stony Creek. ​“And if nothing else, this puts it back to the town and the police department. Let them work on the parking. We are not in the parking business.”

The judge in the case had pressed the parties to settle, explaining that if they didn’t everything they had agreed to would be gone. The judge also pressed the parties to resolve the parking issue. Attorney Tim Lee, who represents the SCA, told the board that the settlement had to be put to paper before briefs starting the legal appeals process were required to be filed in court. The briefing schedule had been set to begin on Dec.19.

“What is needed is board approval for the general idea,” he told the audience and the board at the meeting. Then, he added, the agreement would become a stipulated judgment of the court. Since the lawyers would have to be ready to file briefs in December, it was necessary for the SCA to act at this meeting.

As the lights were about to dim, Bullard asked for a vote to finally end a drama that had pitted neighbor against neighbor at often contentious meetings over the past two years. 

When the vote came in at 5 – 5, Bullard paused for a moment. Then he cast the vote that broke the tie. With that, the new Legacy theater took its official place on Thimble Island Road in the village of Stony Creek. 

Diana Stricker contributed reporting for this story.
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