To Curb Sprawl –

P&Z Sharpening Open Space Preservation Rules

By Andrew Gorosko

After they formulate the final draft of their regulatory proposal intended to maximize the amount of undeveloped land that would be preserved in some new subdivisions of single-family homes, Planning and Zoning Commission (P&Z) members are expected to enact the measure, thus creating a new mechanism designed to limit suburban sprawl in a town that was once largely rural.

The six members of the P&Z, who were reviewing progress on formulating regulations for the “open space conservation subdivision” (OSCS) at a July 15 public hearing, realized after discussion that different members of the agency were working with different drafts of the proposal. The proposal has been through numerous revisions during the past several months. P&Z members have been considering the topic since October 2002.

Consequently, after all P&Z members receive final drafts of the OSCS proposal, they will study the document and then act, ostensibly approving the regulations at an upcoming P&Z session.

During the July 15 hearing, the six P&Z members traded ideas in seeking to reach a final version of the OSCS proposal. The panel has eight members, but two people did not attend the session.

P&Z Chairman William O’Neil said that under the current version of the proposal, an applicant for a given residential subdivision would determine whether the project would be built as an open-space oriented OSCS development, or as a conventional large-lot subdivision. 

 At a March public hearing on an earlier version of the OSCS concept, P&Z members had proposed that the P&Z determine whether a project be built as an OSCS development, or as a conventional subdivision. But that proposal met with stiff opposition from developers and their agents, who challenged the legality of letting the P&Z to make such a decision.

OSCS development would “cluster” single-family houses on relatively small building lots on a development site to allow a relatively larger amount of undeveloped land to be preserved on that site. The clustering of buildings is intended to preserve the unique natural features of a site. The OSCS development approach would allow large amounts of undeveloped area to be preserved at no cost to the town. The amount of land preserved would represent more acreage than the town likely would have the financial means to acquire.

“A lot of the nation has much smaller (building) lots than we have in Newtown,” Mr O’Neil noted.

The OSCS approach is primarily intended for parcels of at least 20 acres, or of at least eight building lots. A key feature of such development is the use of a large-scale septic system that would serve multiple homes.

Under the current OSCS proposal, the area of a building lot must be at least ten times as large as the “footprint” of a house that sits on that lot. In other words, if the ground level dimensions of a house were 40 feet wide by 50 feet long, the building’s footprint would be 2,000 square feet. The area of the building lot, for example, would then have to be at least 20,000 square feet.

P&Z member Robert Poulin said that the P&Z’s stated goal of preserving up to 50 percent of a site as “open space” seems to have frightened certain people.

Mr O’Neil noted that even though up to 50 percent of a site would remain undeveloped, the overall construction density, or number of dwellings, on the site would be the same as if the property were developed as a conventional subdivision, because the dwellings would be “clustered” on the site.

Mr O’Neil explained that if 50 percent of a site remained undeveloped, the town or some private land trust would receive 15 percent of the site as open space land, which would be open to the public. Additionally, 35 percent of the site would be set aside as undeveloped land, which would be commonly owned by the subdivision’s homeowners, he said.

The P&Z recently increased the minimum percentage of open space to be preserved in all new subdivisions from 10 percent of the acreage to 15 percent, greatly increasing the fraction of the land that is given to the town, or to a designated land trust for public use.

Drawing Distinctions

Mr Poulin urged that the OSCS regulations include definitions that draw distinctions between the “open space,” which would be owned by the town or a land trust for public use, and the privately owned common land that would owned by the subdivision’s homeowners. Mr Poulin suggested that land commonly owned by the homeowners be termed “private common space.”

Local builder and developer George Trudell asked whether such private common space would be available for some recreational use. Mr Trudell suggested that such private common space be allowed to contain structures such as “open air pavilions.”

In an earlier version of the OSCS proposal, the P&Z had considered providing developers who construct OSCS projects with a flat seven-percent “density bonus.” Under such a plan, as a financial incentive, developers would be able to build seven percent more dwellings in an OSCS project than they would be allowed to build in a comparable conventional subdivision.

In the current version of the OSCS proposal, developers instead would be allowed to build OSCS subdivisions that have a proportionally greater number of “interior lots” than are allowed in conventional subdivisions, Mr O’Neil said. Such interior lots, which position houses in areas away from streets, do not have normal minimum road frontages. The use of shared driveways would make such development possible.

The proposed OSCS regulations are designed to conserve the remaining undeveloped landscape in a town that formerly was largely agricultural. During the past 20 years, approximately 14,000 acres of vacant land, representing 36 percent of the town’s total land area, were developed as residential subdivisions.

The community character of areas that were developed changed from “rural” to “suburban,” and the natural landscape and ecosystems of those areas significantly changed due to the grading of 2,700 house lots and the construction of miles of subdivision roads and stormwater drainage facilities.

The proposed OSCS regulations cover both the zoning regulations and the planning regulations. OSCS development would require a “special exception” to the zoning regulations, as well as a subdivision approval under the planning regulations.

Open space land in an OSCS development would be preserved for wildlife habitat, natural resource conservation, historic and archaeological preservation, agriculture, horticulture, forestry, and recreation.