East Haven Hires New Zoning Enforcement Officer

EAST HAVEN, CT — East Haven has a new zoning enforcement officer.

The town announced in a news release that Joseph Budrow, who held a similar role for the town of Essex, has been named to the post. A union job, he'll be paid $84,815 a year. The ZEO job has been vacant since last fall.

Budrow has 15 years of zoning experience, including with inland wetlands. A Certified Zoning Enforcement Official through the Connecticut Association of Zoning Enforcement Officials, he attended the Municipal Inland Wetlands Commissioners Training Program offered by the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection. He has degrees in Geography with Planning Specialization and Environmental Science and Toxicology.

He was the Zoning Enforcement Agent and Wetlands Enforcement Agent in Essex where his responsibilities included staffing the town’s Zoning Commission, Inland Wetlands and Watercourses Commission, and Zoning Board of Appeals and performing all other ZEA and WEA administrative duties, including conducting field inspections, assisting with preparation of regulation text amendments and map changes, meeting with applicants and their design professionals and legal counsel to review and explain regulatory requirements, and working with the Town’s other code officials on matters of compliance and enforcement, the news release noted.

Budrow was vetted thoroughly, Mayor Joseph A. Carfora said.

Carfora said that though the "position is not hired through the Civil Service Commission, the Town of East Haven relied on the Chief Examiner and her extensive and diverse job advertising capabilities to advertise this opening."

“The process to select Joe was thorough," Carfora said. "We sought the opinions of a number of professionals within this unique field about our candidates and Joe rose above the group. Joe received high marks as a technician in the field and with regard to his customer service skills. We were moved by Joe’s inland wetlands experience as well. On behalf of the town of East Haven, I welcome Joe.”

According to the town, his job responsibilities include administrative and field work duties involving regulatory planning and the enforcement of state and local zoning laws, Town Ordinances, and land use regulations. The position is staff to the Planning and Zoning Commission and the Zoning Board of Appeals. Duties include, but are not limited to, receiving and reviewing applications for subdivisions, re-subdivisions, special exceptions and permits, zone changes, zoning text changes, site plans, and modified site plans; attending Planning and Zoning Commission and Zoning Board of Appeals meetings; and meeting and communicating with property and business owners, developers, attorneys, architects, engineers, and other professionals and administrators; advising potential developers of the Town’s needs and regulatory restrictions.

This position also has the responsibility of reviewing all zoning permit and variance applications and for making difficult zoning enforcement and land use determinations daily. The work requires that the employee have considerable knowledge of planning procedures and plan review as well as skill and ability in every phase of zoning enforcement and land use determination.