Botsford Industrial Building Gets P&Z Approval

By Andrew Gorosko

The Planning and Zoning Commission (P&Z) has approved plans to construct a 71,640-square-foot industrial building off High Bridge Road in Botsford for electronic component manufacturing and printed circuit board assembly.

P&Z members on July 3 approved a site development plan from applicant Newtown Investments, LLC, for SMT Corporation’s building planned for #8 and #12 High Bridge Road.

The 8.2-acre site is on the south side of High Bridge Road, near that road’s intersection with Botsford Hill Road. The property now contains a field, woods, and a wetland. The site has sandy, gravelly soils. The property is in a M-2 Industrial zone.

The site is near the Wickes Lumber lumberyard and the former Charles Batchelder Company, which is an abandoned aluminum smelting plant.

Civil engineer Larry Edwards represented the applicant at a July 3 P&Z session.

The developer now owns a house on the High Bridge Road site, whose resident will have the lifetime use of that home, Mr Edwards told P&Z members. The house is situated near High Bridge Road, on the northern side of the property. The industrial building is planned for the southern side of the parcel.

Most of the planned building will contain industrial and warehousing space, with a smaller section of the structure reserved for office space, Mr Edwards said. Vehicle parking areas would be provided for industrial workers and office employees. Loading docks are planned for the eastern and western ends of the building. One accessway to the building would be provided from High Bridge Road. The 24-foot-tall building would be served by an 800-foot-long driveway leading from High Bridge Road.

Because there is standing water on the site, which may be a vernal pool, construction work will not occur in that area as an environmental protection measure, Mr Edwards said. A vernal pool is a contained basin that lacks an outlet. Such areas contain water for a few months in the spring and early summer. Vernal pools serve as breeding areas for various amphibians. 

 The developer will create two stormwater-handling facilities on the site to control water runoff after storms, Mr Edwards said. The stormwater basins would control drainage from driveways, parking areas, and roofing on the property. The drainage design is intended to keep the runoff water from entering the existing wetland on the site, he said.

A basin on the southern side of the site would hold a significant amount of water, Mr Edwards said. The other basin would be maintained as a turfed area.

The site will have its own water well and its own septic waste disposal system.

Also, the property will have separate water storage tank facilities for firefighting and for a fire sprinkler system.

Operations

SMT officials Thomas Sharpe, of Hattertown Road, and Frank Harrington, of the Poverty Hollow section, attended the July 3 P&Z session.

Mr Sharpe told P&Z members that the firm distributes electronic components. SMT workers disassemble computers to “harvest” resalable computer parts, he said. Most of the planned building would be used to store computer parts waiting to be sold, he said.

Mr Sharpe said chemicals are not used in the firm’s work. Workers use various hand tools to disassemble computers, he said.

The building will be air conditioned to control humidity levels because dry air is the preferred environment for electronic devices, he said.

The planned construction marks the consolidation of SMT’s five existing facilities in area towns, Mr Sharpe told P&Z members. The company has three facilities in Monroe, one plant in Trumbull, plus a facility at a Simm Lane industrial building in Newtown, he said.

The new building would not generate public traffic, Mr Sharpe said. Many company transactions are performed via the Internet, he said. Federal Express and United Parcel Service handle many shipments for the firm, he added.

The firm would pay town real estate taxes on its factory and land, plus personal property taxes on its equipment, but not on its inventory, Mr Sharpe explained.

Mr Sharpe told P&Z members the site will contain attractive landscaping. The firm wants an attractive facility to stay competitive in the high technology industry, he said.

Community Development Director Elizabeth Stocker said the SMT project has been in the planning stages for several years. The project has a value of more than $3 million, she said.

“It is a positive addition to the community,” she said. It is good to have such a project receive town approvals, she said. Besides the July 3 P&Z approval, SMT has received land-use approvals from the Conservation Commission and from the Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA).

Besides the existing approximately 25 jobs that would be transferred to the new facility, the industrial building may generate additional jobs in the future, she said.

As the town’s community development director, Ms Stocker works to foster growth to broaden and increase the local tax base.