IWC Opens Hearing On 38-Lot Sherman Woods Subdivision

By Andrew Gorosko

The town has opened a public hearing on a land developer’s proposal to construct a 38-lot residential subdivision on a 158-acre site near Sherman Street in Sandy Hook, an application representing the largest such project locally proposed for construction in nearly a decade.

The Inland Wetlands Commission (IWC) opened its hearing June 10 on Sherman Woods, a project proposed by developer William H. Joyce of Shepard Hill Road.

About 30 residents from the area where the project would be built attended the session, but they were not allowed to comment or ask questions on the application. The public is expected to participate in the hearing when the session reconvenes at 7:30 pm, Wednesday, June 24, at the town offices at 31 Peck’s Lane.

Representatives for the developer spent about 100 minutes describing the details of the construction proposal in terms of environmental protection for the wetlands and watercourses on the site amid the construction work of land grading, road building, and home construction.

Because the site is in an area without municipal sewers, each single-family house would have wastewater disposal handled by individual septic waste disposal systems.

Some of the site lies in the town’s environmentally sensitive Aquifer Protection District (APD), an overlay zone located above the Pootatuck Aquifer, which is the underground water source for two local public water supplies. The scenic site contains wooded areas and rolling open meadows.

The Sherman Woods site lies in the area surrounded by Berkshire Road, Sugarloaf Road, Sherman Street, Still Hill Road, and Toddy Hill Road. New streets serving the project would intersect with Toddy Hill Road and Still Hill Road.

A stream, known as Keating Pond Brook, drains south-to-north through the site. That stream courses through an extensive wetlands corridor. The watercourses on the site eventually drain to Curtis Pond. The property holds a five-acre created pond. A major environmental issue facing the applicant would be the preservation of the stream and the pond on the site.

Multiple Sessions

IWC Chairman Anne Peters told those at the June 10 session, “This is a hearing that’s going to continue over multiple meetings.”

Larry Edwards of Easton, a civil engineer and surveyor, represents the developer.

The undeveloped parcel now holds a mixture of pasturelands, wooded areas, and wetlands, he said. The project would involve the construction of two new streets — Hanlon Pond Road, which would extend eastward from Toddy Hill Road, and Deacon’s Way, which would extend northward from Still Hill Road.

The new roadways would be built in three construction phases.

The first phase would involve extending a section of Hanlon Pond Road eastward into the subdivision from Toddy Hill Road. The second phase would include extending Deacon’s Way northward into the subdivision from Still Hill Road and its connection with Hanlon Pond Road. The third phase would entail extending Hanlon Pond Road into the site’s interior. Hanlon Pond Road would end at a turnaround circle.

Additionally, other building lots would be positioned along the existing Sherman Street, which extends onto the site from Berkshire Road (Route 34).

The overall project would include the construction of 36 new houses, in addition to the two houses that already exist on the site on Sherman Street.

Mr Edwards noted that the building lots to be created on the site would be listed for sale, after which buyers would purchase them and then individually construct their single-family houses on the lots.

The site would hold 45 acres of open space land that would be left undeveloped. That open space would exist on two tracts, with the bulk of it situated along a wetland corridor adjacent to Keating Pond Brook.

Also, the subdivision would hold more than 17 acres protected by conservation easements, or areas where physical changes are prohibited for environmental reasons.

Thus more than 62 acres of the site would be either open space or be covered by conservation easements, according to Mr Edwards. Almost 40 percent of the overall site would be protected from development, he said.

When the development is completed, approximately 5.6 acres of the site would be covered by impervious surfaces, such as roads, driveways, and roofs, Mr Edwards said. Those are the places from which stormwater drains when it rains.

The overall site would have 11 stormwater retention basins, which are earthen basins excavated in the terrain to regulate the flow of stormwater off the property. Each building lot would contain a “rain garden” or device designed to absorb stormwater flowing off impervious surfaces on the building lot. The soil on the development site tends to be sandy/gravelly, so that stormwater would drain downward into the ground to recharge the underlying groundwater table, according to Mr Edwards.

The construction work would involve the developer performing eight activities regulated by the IWC. The project would include construction work in wetlands, as well as development in adjacent “upland review areas.”

Plans call for the placement of a 42-foot-long arch-style bridge above a wetland on the proposed Deacon’s Way, near its intersection with Still Hill Road.

Stormwater drainage structures also would be installed along Still Hill Road and Sugarloaf Road.

“I think we have taken great care” concerning planning for environmental protection of the site, Mr Edwards said. Much project planning occurred during the past six months, he said.

Site Features

Environmental scientist George Logan of Rema Ecological Services, LLC, of Manchester, represents the developer.

“Obviously, there’s a lot of wetlands on the site,” he said, noting that the property holds approximately 32 acres of wetlands, representing about one-fifth of its area.

Mr Logan explained that a created pond on the site has an average depth of about five feet, with its greatest depth of nine feet lying behind a dam. The pond holds fish, including chain pickerel, he noted.

There has been some beaver activity at the pond, resulting in its water depth increasing by about 18 inches, he said. The pond’s depth may need to be reduced, he added.

Mr Logan said the site’s surface water and wetlands have “very good” water quality.

The construction work proposed for the site would have no significant adverse effects on the wetlands and watercourses there, Mr Logan said. The proposed road crossing of a wetland at Deacon’s Way, near its intersection with Still Hill Road, is a prudent design from an environmental protection standpoint, he said.

IWC member Dr Philip Kotch suggested that the property be developed as a “cluster housing” development in which houses are clustered to maximize the amount of contiguous open space that would be left undeveloped on the site.

In August 2004, after nearly two years of review, the Planning and Zoning Commission (P&Z) approved a specialized set of land use rules for cluster housing developments known as the Open Space Conservation Subdivision (OSCS) regulations. Those regulations include both zoning rules and planning rules intended to maximize the amount of undeveloped land that would be preserved in new subdivisions of single-family homes, as a mechanism to limit suburban sprawl.

In response to Dr Kotch’s suggestion, Mr Edwards said that the OSCS regulations are an unworkable set of land use rules. Implementing those rules for the construction of Sherman Woods would not provide any added environmental protection for the property, he said.

Mr Edwards characterized the OSCS rules as a “great concept,” but “impractical regulations.”

The applicant had considered such a development approach for the site, but it was not pursued because the rules are “unworkable,” Mr Edwards said.

Rob Sibley, the town’s deputy director of planning and land use, asked that the developer provide specific information to the IWC on how erosion and sedimentation would be controlled on the site.

Ms Peters said that the public may submit information in writing to the IWC on the Sherman Woods application.

Mr Sibley said this week he has received many letters from the public expressing comments on the Sherman Woods proposal.

If the project gains wetlands/watercourses protection approval from the IWC, it also would need subdivision approval from the Planning and Zoning Commission (P&Z). The site has R-2 zoning, which requires building lots of at least two acres.

The Sherman Woods project would be subject to recently approved P&Z regulations that require that subdivision sites be subject to a review of their archaeological, historic, and cultural significance with an eye toward physical preservation.

Sherman Woods is the largest subdivision proposed for town since Cider Mill Farm, which is adjacent to Lower Paugussett State Forest and north of the Bennetts Farm residential subdivision in Sandy Hook. M&E Land Group applied to the P&Z for the 52-lot Cider Mill Farm on 137 acres in June 2000. That project gained P&Z approvals for three development phases, with the final phase endorsed by the P&Z in November 2002.