Wetlands Agency Approves 178-Unit Condo Complex

By Andrew Gorosko

Inland Wetlands Commission (IWC) members this week granted a wetlands/watercourses protection permit to a development firm that plans to construct a 178-unit age-restricted condominium complex at the 50-acre site of a depleted sand-and-gravel mine in Hawleyville.

The IWC approved the permit for Toll CT III, Limited Partnership, at a brief October 26 session. The firm is a unit of Toll Brothers, Inc. The working name of the project is Woods at Newtown.

The Toll project is planned for property with a street address of 12-16 Pocono Road. Access to the site would be provided from the north side of Mt Pleasant Road (Route 6) via an existing private street, known as Splendid Place that now serves Maplewood at Newtown, which is a 100-unit assisted-living rental complex 166 Mt Pleasant Road.

 The IWC held a public hearing on the project on October 12, but postponed action on the application until all IWC members could review the application.

“It was very good presentation, very thorough and well done,” said IWC Chairman Anne Peters of the firm’s description of its project.

In 2006, the IWC had granted a wetlands/watercourses permit for the site to another developer who had proposed construction of a similar project there, but which never materialized. The Toll wetlands application is largely similar to the previously approved plans, but differs in some details.

The Planning and Zoning Commission (P&Z) approved the project on October 6.

Yet to be resolved is a pending appeal in Danbury Superior Court, through which the current owner of the site seeks to have the Water & Sewer Authority (WSA) reduce the payment that would be charged to have the 178-unit condo complex use the Hawleyville municipal sewer system. That court case has a status conference scheduled for November 8.

Toll holds a purchase option to buy the site from the current owner.

Conditions of Approval

The IWC placed certain conditions on its wetlands/watercourses permit approval, including that the developer must work to remove an invasive plant species from the premises.

Among the other conditions: erosion and sedimentation controls must be installed before construction starts and must be maintained at the site; the town conservation official must approve the marked limits of physical disturbance at the site before construction occurs; the plans for the project cannot be changed without prior approval from the town; any open space and/or conservation easement areas must be defined by permanent markers on the site; and the developer must have an environmental management consultant on hand to oversee the use of erosion and sedimentation controls at the site.

The 178-unit Toll project would contain 67 dwellings within 19 multiple-unit townhouse-style buildings, 111 condo units within six large buildings, and a community clubhouse, with a swimming pool and bocce courts. All residential units would be offered for sale.

The 19 townhouse buildings would include two-, three-, and four-unit structures. Three of the large buildings would have 17 units each, with the other three large structures containing 20 units each. Including the clubhouse, the site would hold 26 buildings that would enclose 202,800 square feet of floor space overall.

The Toll project represents the fourth time since 1998 that various firms have sought to develop the site with a large-scale, high-density multifamily housing project for people over age 55. All three previous projects, two of which gained approvals from the town, failed to materialize.

Toll officials have assured the town that the firm fully intends to construct the project, having developed a sense of what features such a complex requires in order to be successful.

Residents would occupy the sections of the Woods complex as they are completed, with construction continuing at the site until the project is finished. Both the large apartment buildings and the smaller condo buildings would be constructed simultaneously.

Last December, P&Z members unanimously modified the zoning regulations on high-density elderly housing complexes, setting the stage for Toll’s application to construct what was then proposed as a 171-unit complex.

The various rule changes on high-density, age-restricted, multifamily housing complexes that Toll sought and received from the P&Z last December generally allow taller buildings than previously permitted, allow the placement of a bedroom on the upper level of two-story townhouse-style condo units, and add a new category of age-restricted multifamily housing termed “apartments.”