Weston ZBA Denies Height Variance for North Avenue Home Built 14 Inches Too Tall

WESTON — May 9, 2023 — Weston ZBA unanimously denies height variance for new home found 14 inches over the legal limit. The three-member board — Chair Jane Carlson, Wendy Kaplan Amore, and Laura Mansfield — voted 3 to 0 at the May 9 hearing to deny a variance sought by HPA Design architect Henry Arnauto and developer Gary Litchfield of Litchfield Development for a newly constructed single-family home at 506 North Avenue. Arnauto had entered a base elevation in the wrong location on his construction plans, causing the finished structure to exceed Weston's 37-foot height limit by 14 inches across a 42-foot section of peaked roof. Attorney Joseph Duquette of Abbate and Dewey argued the deviation amounted to less than 4 percent of the total roof area and that the site's layered wetland buffers and a 21-foot grade change justified a hardship finding; all three board members rejected that reasoning, with Carlson stating flatly that "14 inches is significant" and that a self-imposed error does not satisfy the statutory hardship standard. The Planning Board had previously voted 4 to 1 to approve an amended scenic road site plan with an enhanced 11-tree evergreen landscaping buffer, but the ZBA found it was bound by a stricter legal standard.