Firms Seek Industrial Zone Changes To Expand Development Potential

By Andrew Gorosko

Planning and Zoning Commission (P&Z) members are reviewing two firms’ requests for changes of zone to expand the respective industrial development potential of properties near Edmond Road and Wire Road.

P&Z members are considering a developer’s request for a change of industrial zoning from M-2 to M-5 for a site off Edmond Road as a preliminary step toward the industrial development of a 27-acre property.

5-K Enterprises, Inc, at a September 1 P&Z public hearing, formally requested a change of zone for the site for a variety of industrial uses, including the storage of construction equipment. The site is on the west side of Edmond Road, which is a private road. The property lies in a wooded area behind the Newtown Shell Service gas station at 67 Church Hill Road.

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.

5-K proposes constructing almost 180,000 square feet of industrial space in four buildings off Edmond Road for the storage of construction equipment, warehousing, office space, and possible retail uses. M-5 zoning is more liberal in its uses than M-2 zoning, allowing more potential uses for the site, such as retail sales.

The four proposed buildings would hold a combined 179,625 square feet of enclosed space. The sizes of the four proposed structures are 91,875 sf, 37,500 sf, 35,250 sf, and 15,000 sf.

Such an Edmond Road warehouse/industrial complex would be constructed in two phases during a five-year period.

5-K Enterprises also is seeking a wetlands permit for the project on the wet site from the Conservation Commission, serving as the town’s wetlands protection agency.

Attorney Robert Hall, representing 5-K Enterprises, said September 1 that possible uses of the site might include a plumbing supply business or a sales complex for construction equipment.

The largest usable area on the 27-acre site is directly east of the Housatonic Railroad’s train tracks. The site holds extensive wetlands and steep slopes, posing developmental constraints. Also, the site’s lack of suitable road frontage poses difficulties in creating an industrial subdivision within an M-5 zone.

American Wire

On September 1, the P&Z also held a public hearing on a separate request from American Wire Corporation of 1 Wire Road to change the industrial zoning designation from M-2 to M-5 for an approximately five-acre parcel that it owns. The American Wire site abuts the 27-acre Edmond Road parcel.

Attorney Loreto Crisorio, representing American Wire, said the site requested for rezoning houses the entire operation of American Wire, a firm that formerly had many more employees than it does today.

The P&Z’s concerns about the potential negative effects on area traffic that could evolve from a change of zone are “speculative and premature,” Mr Crisorio said.

American Wire is  seeking the change of zone for “a more productive use of the property,” he said.

But, he added, the firm has not yet decided future potential uses for the property. As such, the company is seeking the change of zone without specifying the potential uses for the site, other than those uses which are allowed in a M-5 industrial zone, he said. 

Mr Crisorio declined to discuss with P&Z members future potential uses of the property.

“Are there any questions?” he asked.

“Apparently none that you’re willing to answer,” responded P&Z Chairman William O’Neil.

On September 1, the P&Z closed the public hearings on the zone change requests from 5-K Enterprises and also  from American Wire. P&Z action on both zone change applications is expected at an upcoming session.

Considering that the two parcels for which changes of zone are being sought abut one another, the P&Z had opted to conduct the public hearings on both rezoning proposals at the same meeting.

Community Development Director Elizabeth  Stocker has noted that neither the 5-K Enterprises nor the American Wire applications for rezoning include any information on the potential traffic impact of such zone changes. Church Hill Road in that area poses one of the worst traffic situations in the ten-town planning region, she noted.

Future plans to realign the southern end of Edmond Road, so that it forms a four-way intersection with Church Hill Road and Commerce Road, would require the cooperation of the Edmond Road industrial site’s owner, as well as the owners of businesses on Church Hill Road, according to Ms Stocker. The town would need to accept Edmond Road as a public road before such an intersection realignment could occur.