Former NEON CEO’s property on city tax sale list

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5 responses to “Former NEON CEO’s property on city tax sale list”

1. Oldtimer

   May 9, 2014

   City website shows Stephenson as owners, but that page links to a property information page that shows a different owner,NEW ALLIANCE CONDO PROJECT ONE LLC, a corporation with a Stamford address, since June of 2011. and that is a name change from Deforrest Realty, a Darien Company owned by a lady named DeForrest. It is not clear if, or when, the Stephenson’s held an interest in the property.

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2. John Hamlin

   May 10, 2014

   The real question is why is this property permitted to have a parking lot covering the area where there should be a front lawn? Surely there’s no variance on the books to permit that? This asphalt blight needs to be removed and a proper lawn or green area put in front. I thought Norwalk was getting away from allowing people to pave their entire front lawns?

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3. Mike Mushak

   May 10, 2014

   John Hamlin, as you know the city staff wasted precious taxpayer dollars going after me, as part of a petty retaliatory campaign by certain individuals, for moving a flower pot in my driveway, complete with a cease and desist order. The flower pot was required to prevent parking on a tiny gravel “entry court” which existed when my historic house was built in 1892 but did not show up on a survey done in 1982 which only showed the asphalt driveway, even though the gravel was there. The city made us follow the survey even though that showed an illegal parking area as well. It made no sense, and most of our yard remained grass and landscaping.

   However, this house follows what many owners have done (which we do need a coherent policy to prevent, perhaps a maximum 30% front yard coverage), which is pave over its entire front yard with asphalt illegally, and never added any landscaping which the city should have required when approving the site plan. Not a single shrub or tree. Just unmown grass and trash that is never picked up. Lovely. It has a damaged weed-choked chain link fence around the side, that traps trash which is never cleaned.
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   It is basically a recently built eyesore on a major corner and a major gateway to South Norwalk. This story is basically a metaphor for everything that is wrong with Norwalk Planning and Zoning-they go after folks they don’t like or who have minor violations that matter little, but they look the other way over major violations like this property that affect an entire neighborhood, and which we know staff has to drive by and must see every day on their way to inspect dozens of projects in Harbor View and Harbor Shores where folks are repairing their homes and raising their houses after Sandy.
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   The owners should be ashamed of themselves for allowing this property to look like this with no effort to beautify or maintain it, and completely paving over their front yard when they have plenty of parking underneath and in the back. I hope they do lose it as they were terrible stewards of this property and care little about it obviously, including breaking zoning regulations. If they do get it back, I hope the city does enforce its codes just as they made me move my flower pot back, but somehow I doubt they will.

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4. John Hamlin

   May 10, 2014

   Michael Mushak — I fear that everything you say is right. I am hoping that the City will prove it is not. We shall see.

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5. Norewalk Lifer

   May 13, 2014

   If you guys remembered, this was a gas station, I give the owners high marks for trying to put an affordable housing complex, where there was a real blight; I remember the synagogue when I was a kid, with the gas station right across the street.

   Now, we need gas stations, and we need places of worship, that old building is a work of art in my view, and I’ll add one more thing; I’d like to see individual personal stories on other properties that are being held for tax payments; why pick on the Stephensons’? is this just character assassination thru passive aggressiveness at this point?

   Leave them alone, move on, NEON is closed down, find another mole to pick at.

   Normally Mike Mushak, I defend your comments, but this one is not about you.

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