New Britain herald., 1927-02-08
K esents Intimation That Minutes of Ad- justment Board Meet
 ing Had Been Altered.
Case Completed With Tes- timony That Property
 Values at Proposed Site of Temple Are Declining.
Especial to The Hetald)


 Hartford, Feb. S-Judge John Il. hlrkham, corporation counsel for the city of New Britain, in superior court today at the hearing on the appeal of residents of Russell street from decision rendered by the board of adjustment in that cit, granting an exception to the zoning restrictions to the Masonic corpora ton Of New Britain to allow it to build home on the street, objected to lntlmauons of the appellants in the case that Thomas Linder, chai.- man of the board, had altered the records of the meeting held for dis cussing the subject.
 I do not relish the intimation. said Judge kirkham, that Mir. Lin der changes records and we want him on the witness stand to clear the records"
 MT. Llnder was then called to ex- plain how a copy of the minutes of the meeting taken by the secretary to Judge kirkham was not identical with the copy produced in court. Ar, Llndcr explained that Miss Eva Kaoer is the stenographer for the board and she makes a stenographic record of the minutes.
 He said that before these had been transcribed, he. from memory, wrote out the minutes Of the meet ing and sent them to the building department. These. later were giv- en to Judge kirkham and were those brought into the superior court. The other notes were the exact stenographic record as taken by Miss Raber
 Evidence Finished
 The evidence was all in shortly before noon today in the case and lawyers for both sides presented their closing arguments. Lawyer John T. Robinson. representing the residents on Russell street who took the appeal from the decision of the board of adjustment, stated that the decision of the board was not in harmony with the zoning law. He said that this law had been placed on a single lot in the present case. He repeated the declaration of Jo- seph Kennedy, real estate expert who investigated the case, that You can't sweep back the ocean, but we have dikes to keep the ocean back and the zoning law is one of these dikes."
 He said that if the court did not overrule the decision of the board Of adjustment, the entire zoning law would be nullitied. He said that in the present case. the board of ad- Justment assumed legislative powers while 1t rests with the common coun- Gil alone to make these amendments.
 He said that the board of adjust ment is empowered to make special exceptions only in cases where un- necessary hardships might be pre- vented. He drew an example where one piece of property could be re stricted without bringing benefit to any others.
 Question of Rights
 Judge kirkham stated that he hoped to have several matters on zoning determined by the court so that the board of adjustment would know just what it's powers were.
 He said that the appellants were claiming that they were losing their land rights without due process Of law and yet they want the zone law to restrict somebody else so that the other parties would lose their rights,
 He cited a specific case saying that if the exception were not allowed, Andrew J. Sloper. owner of the prop erty on which it is planned to erect the home, would lose s15.000 in cash This represents the difference be- tween the S7,500 he would receive for the property for residential pur- poses and the S22,500 he would re- ceive from the Masonic Temple Cor poration. He said that instances of unnecessary hardships in 99 cases out of 100 were matters purely of dollars and cents. He said that the action of the board of adjustment in this case was not entirely unreasona- ble.
 He claimed that if the adjustment board had no right to make excep- tions, then the zoning law would be unconstitutional. He pointed out al- so that the Sloper lot, the proposed site for the Masonic home. was the last lot in the restricted district, be- ing next to the line of Residence C District in which no exception would be needed to erect the home.
 He expressed the hope that the court would not oyerrule the excep- ton because it would nullify the en- tire zoning law. and the zoning law was too good 8 thing to throw out"
 Walter P. Crabtree, architect. tes- tified when the case was reopened this morning that 3S.3 per cent of the building will be used for lodge rooms, while the remainder will be employed as a clubhouse.
 Say Property Values Decline. E. N. Stanley, president of the Savings Bank of New Britain, stated that property values on Russell street are on the decline. Ills opin- ion was that the erection of temple on Russell street would in- crease property values. Attorney Robinson asked him if he thought that the land is worth what the Masons are paying, and Mir Stanley replied. No"
 A. J. Sloper, president of the New Britain National bank, from whom (ContInued on Pare Threel