P&Z Rejects Brookheights Subdivision Proposal

By Andrew Gorosko

The Planning and Zoning Commission (P&Z) has rejected the Brookheights residential subdivision proposal, a controversial plan to create seven new house lots at a steep site alongside Pond Brook.

P&Z members turned down the development application at an April 17 session. Brookheights, LLC, had proposed creating the seven 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 proposed the project.

The project had drawn opposition from some residents living in the area, based on their environmental concerns.

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

In their motion to reject the Brookheights proposal, P&Z members explained their reasons for turning down the project.

P&Z members decided that the land proposed for subdivision has many environmental constraints, plus historic qualities. “The presence of steep slopes and poorly-draining soils, Pond Brook, the 100-year floodplain, the old railbed, and evidence of historic factors [on the site] are considered to be assets of a community nature,” according to the P&Z.

The P&Z noted that the development proposal did not receive a wetlands construction permit from the Conservation Commission, acting as the town’s wetlands agency. The P&Z pointed out that in September 2000, the Conservation Commission denied the development proposal because it would have caused “extensive and unnecessary impacts…to the wetlands on the site.”

P&Z members also noted that the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has not yet acted on the wetlands construction aspects of the development proposal, as had been requested by the developers, after the developers failed to get a Conservation Commission approval for the project.

“The wetland impacts outlined by the Conservation Commission and the lack of a DEP approval are considered to be significant…The wetland and floodplain issues must be resolved,” according to the P&Z.

P&Z members noted that following a review of the development proposal, they determined that the road proposed for the Brookheights subdivision must be designed for possible future extension onto an adjoining property, assuming that the adjoining property might potentially be developed.

Such a Brookheights road design would eliminate the need for a second road crossing over Pond Brook, if the adjacent land is developed in the future, according to the P&Z. The Brookheights proposal calls 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.

The P&Z points out that Brookheights Lane has been proposed as a permanent dead-end street. Due to such a road design, the future extension of that road into adjacent, potentially developable land would not be possible, thus putting the Brookheights application in direct conflict with the town’s subdivision regulations and with the 1993 Town Plan of Conservation and Development, according to the P&Z.

Regulatory Changes

The developers submitted the Brookheights proposal to the P&Z last summer, just before the P&Z’s rules on the calculation of house lot sizes became stricter. Those revised rules exclude from lot size calculations the presence of wetlands and steep slopes.

If the developers were to reapply to develop the Brookheights site under the stricter revised regulations, fewer building lots would be allowed on the site. 

The stricter building lot standards, which took effect last September, provide that any building lot that is created after September 16, 2002, shall contain an amount of land that is at least equal to the minimum lot area in acres for the land use zone in which it is located, exclusive of wetlands, watercourses, federally designated 100-year floodplains, and natural slopes of at least 25 percent grade.

P&Z members have said they approved the stricter lot size calculations to enhance the remaining rural character of the community by balancing development and conservation concerns. P&Z members had decided that the rule changes would enhance land conservation and the protection of Newtown’s natural resources by requiring that lots have an adequate land area that is relatively level and dry to allow the construction of homes, septic waste disposal systems, and domestic water wells.

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