Due to public interest in the Rochambeau Woods proposal to build 29 clustered condominium units at a 29.2-acre site on Mt Pleasant Road in the borough, the Inland Wetlands Commission (IWC) has scheduled a public hearing on the application submitted by development firm Hunter Ridge, LLC.

At a March 23 session, IWC members scheduled the public hearing for 7:30 pm on Wednesday, April 13, at Newtown Municipal Center, 3 Primrose Street.

The IWC's review would consider the environmental effects of the project. If approved, the developer would receive a wetlands/watercourses protection permit for the project at 41, 43, 45, and 47 Mt Pleasant Road (US Route 6/State Route 25).

Steve Maguire, town land use enforcement officer, said March 24 that the development plans indicate that the 29 condos would be constructed on the section of the site nearer to Mt Pleasant Road.

The area specified for condo construction has pockets of wetlands to the northeast, to the south, and to the west of it, he said. The property also contains an old farm pond near Mt Pleasant Road.

Also, although the clustered condos would be built at the section of the site nearer to Mt Pleasant Road, the site has 450 feet of frontage on Taunton Lake, a more than 100-acre spring-fed lake.

The areas containing wetlands/watercourses are depicted on engineering drawings for the project.

Mr Maguire said that in environmental terms, it is preferable that such a project have municipal sanitary sewer service, as is proposed, rather than using septic waste disposal systems at the site.

A previous development proposal for the property, which would have been a conventional residential subdivision, included the use of individual septic systems for 14 single-family houses arrayed across the 29.2-acre parcel.

The environmentally sensitive wooded site extends downward from Mt Pleasant Road to Taunton Lake. The acreage nearer to Mt Pleasant Road would be physically altered, creating a construction area for 29 individual buildings, each of which would hold one condo unit. The 29 clustered structures would be arrayed alongside a pentagonal ring road.

Although the site lies in a R-1 (Residential) zone, the applicant is seeking approval for the project under the terms of the Borough Zoning Commission's (BZC) "residential open space development" (ROSD) zoning regulations.

The ROSD regulations require that at least 50 percent of such a site be set aside as preserved open space land through a conservation easement. In effect, at least 14.6 acres would need to be designated as preserved land.

The ROSD regulations are a mechanism to foster open space preservation at large residential developments through the clustering of dwellings, leaving much land undisturbed. Such development also is known as cluster housing.

Besides BZC review, the project would be reviewed by the Water & Sewer Authority (WSA) because the developer proposes wastewater disposal for the 29 condos via the central municipal sanitary sewer system.

The construction work required to build 29 condos would be completed within five years of the project's final approval, according to the application.

The proposed residential development of the Mt Pleasant Road property had been the subject of a decade-long court battle, which concluded in September 2015, when the Connecticut Supreme Court ruled in favor of Hunter Ridge LLC, thus overriding the claims of a private intervenor, who had objected to development there on environmental grounds.