Update: Zoning Enforcement Action at 54 Bare Hill Road (Forsaken Lands)

As reported at the Nov.18 Planning & Zoning Commission meeting, a Zoning Violation Notice was sent to property owner Gary Stango, Jr. citing “storage of commercial materials in a residential zone”.

A copy of the Nov. 13 notice was provided to The Goshen News in response to our request. It states that “commercial and non-agricultural related storage” of materials owned by a 3rd party in a residential zone, “is not a permissible use under Goshen’s Home-Based Business regulations”. 

The “materials” are part of the Forsaken Lands Halloween attraction. 

The Goshen News reached out to Musselman, Stango, and Forsaken Lands operator Alex Fortuna for comment and updates.

Regarding the Zoning Violation Notice, Stango said “The Forsaken Land’s lawyer reached out to Spencer... I believe they are now in talks”.

Fortuna confirmed that: “There is a pending phone call discussion with my legal counsel and Spencer.”

We asked Fortuna how much material he was storing at the property, at which point he interjected: “I'm going to stop you right there on that. So that's part of what the issue is here is that this is being portrayed as storage. This is not storage. So the attraction remains on the property year round because we are constantly maintaining the attraction and working on it… This violation notice is saying that we're violating the home-based business regulations of, of Goshen, which is very inaccurate.”

Fortuna said that “this was approved by Spencer as an agritourism, accessory use to the farm. And it's a recurring use. This is not an event... I would appreciate it respectfully if you please stop referring to it as an event, because this is not an event. An event, you know, we're talking about the Black Bear Music Festival, you know, the Goshen Stampede, the Goshen Fair. Those are things that happen for three, four days in a weekend, and then they package it up, they move shop somewhere else. We have a lease at this property, and like I said, we're there throughout the off -season maintaining it, updating it, and storage? No. The structures are remaining there as they do throughout the operating season, as it did at Action Wildlife, our previous location.”

Musselman explained the violation notice as follows: “The zoning [violation] is tailored towards the storage of commercial materials, which is all the buildings and other props used for the attraction being stored there, which constitutes commercial storage. It's not permissible as a home occupation because it's not Gary's business.”

We asked Musselman to clarify whether this is considered a “use” or an “event”.

“So the Board of Selectmen regulate temporary events like this”, he replied. “They have an ordinance for that, albeit the threshold is higher than this event… We don't currently have any language about special events for Planning and Zoning. However, what is clear to me is that they're not allowed to store this material here for this event… You can't store all this stuff here. You can't run this business out of there. So that's the angle I'm approaching the violation from.”

We asked Musselman to explain his Aug. 8, 2024 email, which Fortuna has referenced as giving the attraction permission to operate as an agricultural accessory use. “The way they explained it to me when I first started, the first day I started in Goshen, I was approached by Mr. Stango and Alex Fortuna, and it was shared with me that it was a hayride, a haunted hayride”, he replied. “At that time, I believed it was accessory to the farm use because it had a farm component to it. What changed then is that Alex filed his business name at 54 Bare Hill Road… They started storing all this material here. I looked further into it and it wasn't just a hayride. It was a whole haunted attraction. So the initial presentation of what they were doing to me was not clear, I guess you can say... I never attended the events over at Action Wildlife, so I was unaware of the full scale of what it was. So when they told me, you know, it was a hayride, I was like, oh, that sounds pretty innocuous and that won't have a large impact. And if Action Wildlife could do it for all these years, I'm sure this farm is no different as far as a hayride is concerned. But that wasn't the full scope that was shared with me.”

Fortuna and Stango have denied ever calling the attraction a hayride. 

“There never was talk of a hayride”, Fortuna said. “At the time of initial approval back in late summer of 2024, it was made very clear to Spencer that this was a walkthrough attraction.  I emailed Spencer, as requested, all of our correspondence with all of the town departments, including drone shots of the attraction when it was located at Action Wildlife. And by looking at those drone shots, I'm not quite sure how anyone could be under the impression that this was a hayride. So I don't know where he got that information “

The drone photos show a series of connected panels and doorways, resembling buildings, but without floors, foundations or roofs.