38-Lot Subdivision—

Sherman Woods Public Hearing Concludes

By Andrew Gorosko

Having received a voluminous amount of technical information and listened to numerous public comments on the controversial proposed 38-lot Sherman Woods residential subdivision, the Inland Wetlands Commission (IWC) this week closed its multisession public hearing on the development proposed for a 158-acre agricultural tract off Sherman Street in Sandy Hook.

IWC members closed the public hearing on September 9, after having conducted seven sessions on the application since June. IWC discussion and action on the application is expected at an upcoming session.

Engineer Larry Edwards, representing developer William H. Joyce of Shepard Hill Road, presented to IWC members a list of the many documents that the applicant has given to the agency for review.

At the sixth public hearing on the application on August 26, Mr Edwards had presented four design alternatives for the parcel, as had been requested by the commission.

Three of those four alternatives also proposed 38 single-family houses for the site. The fourth alternative proposed an “affordable housing” complex for the site that would include 100 multifamily units, plus 12 single-family houses. The affordable housing proposal does not comply with applicable local zoning regulations.

Mr Edwards said the formal application that the developer has submitted to the IWC is a “feasible and prudent” development design for the site.

One of the four design alternatives was based on the town’s regulations for the Open Space Conservation Subdivision (OSCS). That alternative would entail 38 houses clustered on the property to conserve more open space on the site. Such a design is also known as “cluster housing.”

Mr Edwards criticized the town’s OSCS rules as being “poorly designed zoning regulations.”

IWC Chairman Anne Peters said that the four design alternatives for the site did not provide much technical detail about those design concepts, thus denying the IWC the option of gauging those designs’ merits versus that of the pending 38-lot application.

Mr Edwards said that the developer’s pending proposal is the design that would have the least adverse effect on wetlands. The applicant is not required to present five complete alternate sets of plans for a project to the IWC, Mr Edwards said.

Ms Peters, however, said she wants to know more about the developer’s version of cluster housing for the site.

IWC member Dr Philip Kotch said that the applicant did not present an alternate development design for the site that has either less adverse effect or no adverse effect on wetlands.

The proposed 38-lot complex would include 36 new single-family houses, plus two existing houses.

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. The developer proposes constructing about 3,550 linear feet of new roadways on the site. Each house would have an individual water well and an individual septic waste disposal system.

The site would hold about 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.