BishopAccountability.org
	Diocese Sells Land to Stanwich School By Patricia McCormack Greenwich Citizen [Greenwich CT] November 25, 2005 An early Thanksgiving present of an unusual sort was bestowed on the Stanwich School Board of Trustees Friday when the Diocese of Bridgeport sold 25 acres of its property to the school for what is believed to be $15 million. That is what the Catholic diocese headed by the Most Rev. William Lori, bishop of Bridgeport, had been asking for the land that abuts 17 acres owned by St. Agnes Church at 247 Stanwich Road. The diocese needs the money to help pay off a $21 million recent settlement with victims of sexual abuse by priests. Disclosure of the sale to the school rather than to unnamed developers who had been in the running was greeted with joy by the school founder, Pat Young. "We are just very excited," she said. It means for the first time the school, founded in 1998, will actually own land. The highly thought of coeducational independent school now goes to grade nine. Classes are held in leased space at Greenwich Reform Synagogue near St. Agnes Church and at St. Catherine of Siena Church in Riverside. What the school paid for the parcel remains in limbo. Neither buyer nor seller disclosed the price tag. However, the amount of money that changed hands will be open to public view when the property transfer is recorded in official land transfer records of the Town of Greenwich. Stanwich has a student body of 350. At the synagogue location, students in grades K to 6 are taught. Students in grades 7 to 9 are taught at the Riverside location. Peter Thompson, chairman of the Stanwich School Board of Trustees, commenting on the land purchase, noted that state-of-the-art facilities would be built on the site. Word of the sale to the school instead of developers interested in putting McMansions on 2-acre plots brought joy especially to Mary Lou Lange, whose grandparents owned a great estate on the property the Diocese of Bridgeport acquired long ago. The mansion, featured in the book, The Great Estates of Greenwich, mysteriously burned to the ground, according to Lange. She recalls her grandparents, in selling to the Diocese of Bridgeport, had understood that the land would be used for educational purposes. Lange had feared that a sale to developers would trample on her grandparents' intentions. Lange's home abuts the property Stanwich School will occupy. She was walking her dog there over a year ago when she discovered surveyor's stakes apparently blocking out building lots. She sounded an alarm to neighbors who got involved in fighting against selling the land to developers. She recalls with joy that as a child she used to chase butterflies in meadowlands Stanwich School now owns. She and her neighbors are pleased the diocese sold to sell to Stanwich School instead of developers. During public hearings over a year ago, neighbors on Cat Rock Road and White Birch Lane near the property sold had expressed fears that developers would have to drill wells deeper than theirs raising fears that the deeper wells would draw down the water table and dry up their wells. No such fears exist, however, since Stanwich School bought the property. In early discussions about the property, Stanwich School officials disclosed that rather than digging wells, in developing the land, the Town water line will be extended so the school has adequate water without disturbing water tables in the neighborhood. Meanwhile, just taking title to the land in no way clears Stanwich School's board of headaches. One of the first: coming up with a plot development plan that will meet requirements of the Greenwich Inland Wetland and WaterCourses Commission and the Planning and Zoning Commission. The parcel bought contains vast wetlands and, according to regulations, these must be protected and not destroyed. According to a lot-split agreement granted to the Diocese of Bridgeport before it could sell the property, Stanwich School is boxed into a complicated problem. The buyer is obliged to come up with a wetlands plan capable of getting all necessary approvals. Only when this is accomplished, additional steps may be taken to develop the 25 acres.
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