The new oil tank behind 772 Farmington Avenue was already in place. The bollards in front of it, the short posts set in concrete beside the tank, had been pulled and reset. The nine-foot pine panel built to screen the whole thing was up and painted to match the siding. All of it was finished, and photographed, before the Farmington Historic District Commission ever voted on it.
On Tuesday, July 21, the commission approved the work as presented, on a voice vote, none opposed and no abstentions. No commissioner asked a question about the work.
The property owner raised the sequence himself. Bruce Hunter, who owns the property under the name FIRM LLC, told the commission by video that he had gone ahead with the job before applying, and he apologized for it twice, both times unprompted.
"Probably ignorance on my part, which is no excuse," Hunter said.
By his account, the rush came down to a discount and a shortage. Hunter said Quinoco Energy, the fuel company that sold and installed the tank, had offered $500 off a replacement, and that when the company checked on his behalf, only two tanks east of the Mississippi were both horizontal and met the criteria the property needed. "Based on that timing," he said, "I said, please proceed." He also told the commission there is nowhere else on the lot a tank can sit, short of burying it, which he did not want to do. None of that was tested at the hearing.
What went in is a 330-gallon tank mounted horizontally, replacing a 275-gallon tank Hunter said had been there 20-some-odd years. He described the old one as rusted and exposed, sitting in an enclosure that was "open for critters" and filling with leaves and debris that were almost impossible to get out. The screening panel is nine feet wide and just over three feet high, six-inch tongue-and-groove pine three quarters of an inch thick, painted to match the existing siding.
Town Planner Shannon Rutherford had already been out to look. When she checked the site, the bollards had not been put back. Hunter said he made sure they were reinstalled after she flagged it.
The review took under nine minutes. Bombara polled the members in turn. Commissioner Joanne Lawson had no questions. Commissioner James Calciano had none either, and offered the only substantive remark of the item: "It's a much better tank to have." Commissioner Michelle Phelan had no questions.
Into that silence, Hunter volunteered a closing argument nobody had asked him for. "Aesthetically, I believe it's a real improvement to the property," he said. Chair Jay Bombara agreed, and said he had checked for himself on the way in. "I just happened to drive by it on the way here," Bombara said. "And I looked up quickly, so you got to be careful."
Rutherford twice polled the online line for public comment. Nobody spoke. Lawson moved to approve, pausing to ask whether the motion needed to specify that the panel matches the existing siding. Rutherford told her "as presented" would cover it. The motion carried.
Five members sat for the hearing. Regular member Peter Mastrobattista was absent, so Bombara seated alternate Ted Sanford as a voting member for the night.
Two months earlier, at the May meeting, Bombara had walked a group of Farmington High School students through how his commission works. He called it a fairly easy process: you file an application, you come to the next meeting, the commission looks at what you want to do, and it votes. The sequence is the part that matters. If you own one of the roughly 150 properties in the Farmington Village Historic District, anything you change on the outside that can be seen from the road comes to this commission first.
Tuesday was the version of that process where the house changed first. The commission's charge is appropriateness, whether a change belongs in the district. The only appropriateness argument made in the room came from the man who had already done the work, and the only inspection anyone described was a glance from a moving car.
This commission does say no. In March 2025 it denied a vinyl window replacement in the district while approving a bluestone walk at the same meeting. One application approved after the fact is not a policy, and Tuesday's record does not establish one. What that record does not contain is any discussion of the order of operations: nobody asked what happens when work is finished before it is reviewed, whether anything different was owed, or whether the vote would have gone the same way had the panel arrived as a drawing instead of a photograph. Hunter apologized, twice, and then wished the commission a good rest of the summer. Nobody took the question up.
Also on Tuesday, the commission approved a roof-mounted sign for Joy Susan, a handbag and accessories boutique moving into 769 Farmington Avenue. And the owners of 7 Church Street, whose staged review the Mercury has followed since 2025, came back to ask whether they could drop the picket fence the commission signed off on in May and expand the landscaping instead. Every commissioner preferred the landscaping. No motion was made and no vote was taken. The June 16 minutes were approved. 🏛️
This coverage is supported by Farmington Storage, 155 Scott Swamp Road, the only storage facility in Connecticut with Museum air. A historic district runs on the premise that some things are worth keeping in the condition you found them. So does a climate-controlled unit holding your grandmother's dining set at institutional grade. Neither one asks whether the thing deserves it. 860.777.4001 📦
Jack Beckett has covered Farmington's Historic District Commission long enough to know that a nine-foot pine panel is a serious matter, and that the interesting part of any hearing is usually the sentence nobody was required to say. He is on his second coffee. ☕
The Farmington Mercury covers the town nobody else is covering: the commission that meets at five in the afternoon, the arrest log that is technically public record but that you would never find unless someone typed it up, the zoning fight that will change your commute in four years. We publish slowly, deliberately, and without apology. Our motto is "Always last to breaking news" and we mean it, because by the time you read this the vote is taken and the facts are checked. Find us at farmingtonmercury.com and tell your neighbors. #WeAreFarmington 📰