Planning & Zoning Commission: What qualifies you for such an important job?

There will be two voting columns for Planning & Zoning Commission candidates. In the first column, you will be asked to choose two of three candidates to serve for a full four-year term. The second column only has Vickie Hanna Riccardo listed, and you will be asked to elect her to fill a two-year vacancy on the board. All candidates are unopposed.

P&Z gives direction and shape to our Town. What qualifications and background do you bring to such an important job?

Frederick B. Conze (i)

Republican, 24 Royle Road

Fred Conze has had a forty-year career in Real Estate Development, project management and finance. Since locating in Darien he has served on the Board of the YMCA, six years in the RTM, a member of the Southwest Regional Planning Association, and most recently completed his sixteenth year on the Planning & Zoning Commission, serving as its Chairman for the past three years.

Joseph H. Spain (i)

Republican, 126 Leroy Avenue

As the League’s question suggests, this is an important job. While my background as an attorney and an engineer were my major qualifications when I first ran for this post in 1997, I believe that today my strongest qualification is my experience in office as a member of the Commission. The position is one of steady and continuous learning about the Town (where I have lived for 42 years), about principles of good planning and about the concerns and different perspectives of so many people all across our Town. And, from all of this, I have come to conclude that our Town Plan is on a solid foundation as it carries forward its primary objective of maintaining the residential character of our community.

Eric J. Voigt

Democrat, 61 Middlesex Road

I bring to the Planning and Zoning Commission a professional background in land use and environmental law as well as experience in Town government. I have been a member of the Darien Representative Town Meeting (RTM) since 2007, where I currently serve on the Public Works Committee. I previously was a member of the RTM’s Planning, Zoning and Housing Committee.

During my tenure representing District 3 on the RTM, I have developed a broad understanding of how our Town bodies, such as the Planning & Zoning Commission, Environmental Protection Commission and the Department of Public Works, interact to produce Darien’s development patterns. I take a special interest in the impact of Planning & Zoning decisions on flood mitigation and related environmental issues.

I am a partner in the law firm Mound Cotton Wollan & Greengrass in New York City, and have been a resident of Darien since 2005.

Vickie Hanna Riccardo

Democrat, 33 Red Rose Circle

The Planning & Zoning Commission considers Darien’s Zoning Regulations, its Plan of Conservation and Development, and other codified law to make its decisions about land use/development applications. Before becoming an at-home mother, I was a securities lawyer. My practice was code driven, just as the Commission’s work is.

The Commission has the delicate task of balancing the competing interests of the Town (as expressed by the codified law); the wishes of private and public property owners who want to develop, improve or re-develop their properties (as expressed in their applications); and the concerns of their neighbors (as expressed in their testimony about such applications). Mothers weigh competing interests every day.

Volunteer experiences: RTM (Rules, PZ&H, and TGS&A Committees), Charter Revision Commission, Darien LWV, YWCA, Tokeneke School. I was appointed to fill a P&Z Commission vacancy in September.