The owner of a Westport Point home who town officials say began building a concrete pool retaining structure last year without proper town review has withdrawn a request that, if approved, would have brought the project into conformance with town regulations and could have allowed him to resume work at the site.

Robert Branca, of 2015 Main Road, had asked in July that the Westport Historical Commission approve a Certificate of Hardship, one of three possible certificates that must be granted before a building permit can be issued when construction falls within the historic commission’s purview and is visible from any public way, including the street and the water. Commission members previously denied his applications for appropriateness and non-appropriateness, and months ago issued a stop work order.

Branca, who months ago filed suit against the town over the standoff, requested that the request for a hardship certificate be withdrawn without prejudice, meaning he can bring it back before the board at any time. Commission members unanimously approved that request Monday evening.

The case goes back just over a year. Town officials contend that though he knew of Westport Point Historic District guidelines prior to the work commencing this time last year, Branca never sought one of the three certificates needed before he applied for, and received, building permits to build the structure, which is visible from the water.

In his July application for a certificate of hardship, Branca wrote among other things that the town-ordered halt in construction, and various attempts to bring the project into alignment with town guidelines and orders, has cost him thousands.

“... For better or worse, building permits were issued by the Town several months prior to the commencement of construction,” he wrote in his application. “The Historical Commission has issued a stop-work order at a point in time where a substantial amount of work has already been done and significant resources expended in the process.”

As a result, he wrote, the new construction “is unusable as it stands today.”

“It is a legal, financial, physical and life-safety hardship for the Applicant to allow the project to remain in its current condition or to return it to its prior condition.”

Other conditions at the site also constitute hardships, he wrote, including changes brought on by rising sea levels.

The work commenced not just to replace and expanding rotting wood patio, he wrote, but also  to “combat rising floodwaters.”

With that work undone, “the property has been flooded well into the back yard, much of it being underwater during simple but heavy rains.”