Hartford Courant
by Vanessa de la Torre
e group of West End residents known as the “Scarborough 11” can stay in their home now that the city has pulled its enforcement threat against them, bringing the two-year zoning dispute closer to a resolution.
On Wednesday, city lawyers quietly withdrew a suit that the city of Hartford brought in March 2015 against the homeowners at 68 Scarborough St., where three children and eight adults live together in a case that tested the city’s definition of family and sparked a wave of national attention.
In its suit, the city had sought a court ruling that would allow it to enforce its cease-and-desist order and hand down civil penalties against the residents for violating the neighborhood’s strict single-family zoning. The group of friends have countered that they are an “intentional family,” even if not all of them are related by blood or marriage.
Howard Rifkin, the city’s corporation counsel, said Thursday that Hartford’s legal fight against the Scarborough 11 had proved costly and that “continuing to pursue an enforcement action against this household is not the best use of the city’s time or resources.”
“We concede that the issues in this case have engendered hard feelings between the residents of 68 Scarborough and their neighbors, not to mention notoriety,” Rifkin said in a statement released through Mayor Luke Bronin’s office. “It is our hope that we can find a way forward, but to further litigate this matter will only increase costs and divert us from some of the critical matters on which the city must focus.”
Peter Goselin, an attorney representing the 11-member household, said Thursday that the city’s latest action means his clients no longer have to fear daily fines or eviction from their home. And if Hartford’s planning and zoning commission further changes its regulations to allow the Scarborough 11, and residents like them, to live together in a single-family dwelling, the case can finally come to an end, he said.
Goselin said he believes the commission is working on such language.
“From our point of view, the people at Scarborough and the city are pretty much on the same side,” Goselin said.
For decades, the city’s zoning regulations had defined members of a family as those related by blood, marriage, civil union or legal adoption. When a group of friends pooled their money to buy a nine-bedroom mansion for $453,000 in August 2014 — although only two of the owners are listed on the mortgage and city property record — neighbors soon complained to the city that the household was openly violating zoning laws in a situation, they said, that threatened to chip away at the quiet character of the West End neighborhood. …