Eight Lots—

Developer Again Seeks Subdivision At Rugged Site

By Andrew Gorosko

The developer of a proposed nine-lot residential subdivision in Sandy Hook, which was rejected for environmental reasons by the Planning and Zoning Commission (P&Z) in 2006, has now submitted an eight-lot version of the project for P&Z review.

In its application to the P&Z, the Schultz Family Limited Partnership, based in Trenton, N.J., is seeking to residentially develop the 33.8-acre site, which has a street address of 127 Walnut Tree Hill Road.

The steep, thickly wooded, rugged site is near the intersection of Walnut Tree Hill Road and Alberts Hills Road. The partnership owns the land parcel.

No new roads would be built to provide access to the subdivision. All eight lots would be served by driveways. Two of those driveways would serve two building lots each. One driveway would be approximately 1,200 feet long. The developers propose installing a 30,000-gallon underground tank that would hold water for firefighting.

Due to the site’s physical limitations, only 24.6 acres of the 33.8-acre property are considered “usable land” under the terms of the land use rules. The pending subdivision application specifies that about 5.6 acres of open space be created on the southern end of the site.

Engineer/surveyor Larry Edwards of Easton represents the applicant.

The owners of 22 properties that lie within 500 feet of the development site will be formally notified of the September 4 public hearing that the P&Z plans to hold on the development application.

The site lies in both R-1 and R-2 zones, which require minimum building lot sizes of one acre and two acres, respectively. Due to the ruggedness of the terrain, the lots are larger than the minimum allowable sizes, ranging in area from 1.8 acres to 6.5 acres.

All of the individual septic systems for the subdivision would be designed by a civil engineer to ensure that the wastewater disposal devices work properly.

In December 2006, after determining that creating nine building lots for single-family houses on the site would amount to overdeveloping an environmentally sensitive property, P&Z members unanimously rejected the development proposal.

In its 2006 rejection of the nine-lot proposal, the P&Z found that, “The plan to provide the maximum number of lots that would be permitted under the zoning regulations is not a practical approach to development upon this sensitive parcel.”

“The subdivision of this north-facing, steeply sloping terrain, as proposed, involves extensive disturbance of the natural [vegetative] ground cover, extensive recontouring of the land, and the installation of several highly-engineered drainage systems, in order to provide usable home sites, septic systems, wells, and access driveways … There is too great a risk in relying upon such extensive engineering in order to realize the … subdivision proposal for this land,” the P&Z then added.

“The potential that one major storm … combined with an engineering failure of one or more of the drainage systems could lead to flooding downhill and hazardous conditions upon the public road is not consistent with protecting public health, safety and welfare,” the P&Z added in its December 2006 decision.

In cutting the number of proposed building lots from nine to eight and in redesigning the project, the developer hopes to gain P&Z approval.

In June, the Inland Wetlands Commission (IWC) modified the wetlands permit which it had granted to the developer in 2005 for the nine-lot version of the development proposal. The IWC placed a lengthy list of conditions on its June approval aimed at protecting the environmentally sensitive site.