Edmond Road Industrial Project

Gains Wetlands Permit

By Andrew Gorosko

A firm’s plan to industrially develop a wooded slope amid wetlands along Edmond Road has cleared a major hurdle with the Inland Wetland Commission’s (IWC) granting the project a wetlands permit for the construction of more than 90,000 square feet of industrial space there.

With IWC member Wesley Gillingham dissenting, IWC members on June 14 approved a wetlands permit for 5-K Enterprises, Inc. The firm wants to build 93,750 square feet of industrial space that would be enclosed within four buildings on a 27-acre site with the street address of 71 Church Hill Road. The property lies on the west side of Edmond Road, south of the Rand-Whitney Container Newtown, LLC site.

5-K Enterprises, Inc, is a Connecticut corporation whose shareholders are Warren Kimball and his five children. 5-K has a purchase option to buy the Edmond Road site from current owners Harriet B. Edwards, Trustee, and Reid S. and Nancy C. Barker Family Limited Partnership.

In November 2005, the IWC, which was then known as the Conservation Commission, unanimously rejected 5-K’s request for a wetlands permit for a larger version of the industrial project.

In its initial application last year, 5-K had sought to create almost 180,000 square feet of industrial space on the site.

The project went through many revisions since then, with the 93,750-square-foot development proposal, which came to be known as “Alternative #3,” becoming the version that gained IWC approval on June 14.

IWC members placed numerous conditions on the wetlands permit for the property. The IWC placed 19 individual conditions on the site’s wetlands permit, which largely pertain to maintaining water quality on the site.

Wetlands-related work would include the construction of a driveway to enter the site from Edmond Road. That driveway entry point would be located just south of a cellular telecommunications tower that was recently erected on the property. Also, two water-quality basins would be constructed on the site for stormwater detention and for water recharge purposes.

The current project would include one 40,500-square-foot building, one 35,250-square-foot building, and two separate 9,000-square-foot buildings. The firm lists the project as a warehousing/industrial complex, intended for the use of tenant contractors, such as plumbers and electricians, who would store their equipment there and have offices in individual spaces at the complex.

In October 2005, the Planning and Zoning Commission (P&Z) approved 5-K’s requested change of zone from Industrial M-2 to Industrial M-5 for the 27-acre site. That zone change expanded the potential number of uses for the property, adding retail sales a permitted land use.

Before that zone change, the site had had an M-2 zoning designation since 1958, when local zoning went into effect.

In their motion to approve the change of zone, P&Z members found that the site has been the subject of several past development proposals, none of which had ever materialized.

According to that P&Z motion, “The commission is confident that the zone change is necessary to provide desired economic development of the … land.”

Also, P&Z members then decided that the change of zone will encourage economic development that is consistent with a long-term plan for the realignment of Edmond Road and Commerce Road which is intended to improve hazardous traffic conditions in the vicinity of the existing Edmond Road/Church Hill Road intersection.

At a September 2005 P&Z public hearing, 5-K Enterprises requested the change of zone for the site for a variety of industrial uses, such as construction equipment storage and/or sales, and possibly a plumbing supply business.

Having received a wetlands permit for the site from the IWC, 5-K would now seek site development plan approvals for the individual buildings in the project from P&Z.