P&Z Studies Brookheights Subdivision Proposal

By Andrew Gorosko

Planning and Zoning Commission (P&Z) members are continuing their review of the Brookheights residential subdivision proposal, a controversial plan to create seven new house lots at a steep site alongside Pond Brook.

Brookheights, LLC, proposes creating the building lots on a 29-acre site off Pond Brook Road and Obtuse Road. The site overlooks Pond Brook, a trout stream that carries water from Taunton Pond to the Housatonic River. Developers Raffie Aryeh and Jay Keillor are proposing the residential subdivision.

The development proposal has drawn opposition from some residents living in the area, based on their environmental concerns.

P&Z members April 3 studied mapping for Brookheights, in seeking to determine what design changes might be needed to make the project a practical and workable development.

P&Z Chairman William O’Neil told commission members that the P&Z’s schedule for acting on the proposal is coming to a close. The developers submitted the current Brookheights proposal to the P&Z last year, just before the P&Z’s rules on calculating house lot sizes became stricter. Those revised rules exclude from lot size calculations the presence of wetlands and steep slopes.

In the past, the Conservation Commission, serving as the town’s wetlands agency, rejected the Brookheights development application. In seeking to override that rejection, the developer then sought a wetlands approval from the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP).

Mr O’Neil told P&Z members it is unclear when the DEP will conduct that public hearing on wetland issues. The P&Z’s schedule for acting on the application, though, is coming to a close, he added. If the P&Z does not act on an application by its deadline, that application receives an automatic approval. P&Z action on the Brookheights application is expected at an upcoming session.

Brookheights, LLC, submitted its original plans for the project to the town more than three years ago.

The developers’ plans call for the installation of a 42-foot-long vehicular bridge over Pond Brook in an area where the trout stream is about 20 to 24 feet wide.

Although sections of the site are subject to occasional flooding by Pond Brook, the proposed subdivision could be created without endangering the public’s welfare, health, or safety, Mr Keillor has said.

The entire 100-year floodplain on the site would be designated as a conservation easement, where development would be prohibited. The 100-year floodplain represents the area that could be expected to flood during the worst flooding in a theoretical 100-year period.

Resident Gary Tannenbaum of 36 Pond Brook Road has entered the Brookheights proposal as an intervenor to the application.

The proposed subdivision has too high a development density, Mr Tannenbaum has told P&Z members, noting that the property has extensive wetlands. Houses, water wells, and septic fields would be confined to tight areas, in view of the poor site conditions, he said. “There shouldn’t be seven lots here,” he has said.

Mr Tannenbaum has charged that the developers rushed to submit their application to the P&Z to beat a deadline, after which the P&Z’s land use rules became stricter. Such revised rules would tend to reduce the potential number of house lots on the site.

The proposed subdivision of land would not result in good building lots, according to Mr Tannenbaum. Only the higher quality land on the site should be subdivided, he maintains.

Eugene Cox, of 31 Pond Brook Road, has expressed concerns about potential flooding in the area. The P&Z must closely consider environmental quality when reviewing subdivision proposals within the Pond Brook Watershed, he has said.