Inland Wetlands Commission (IWC) members this week approved a wetlands/watercourses protection permit for Grace Family Church, Inc, which proposes the construction of a church on Covered Bridge Road to replace its existing church about one mile away at 174 Mt Pleasant Road (US Route 6).

The IWC unanimously approved the permit on November 18, with members Kristen Hammar, Craig Ferris, Suzanne Guidera, and John Davin voting in favor.

The construction of a 24,900-square-foot church is one component of a three-component mixed-use development proposal for a 42-acre property lying south of the Exit 9 interchange of Interstate 84 and west of Hawleyville Road (State Route 25).

A new church would be almost twice the size of the existing church. In 2007, the church group, which was then known as Grace Christian Fellowship, had received town approvals to build a new church on Covered Bridge Road, but never constructed the building. The church started in Newtown in 1984.

IWC members placed many conditions on the wetlands/watercourses permit for the church project on 17 acres.

Under the terms of the wetlands/watercourses permit, the nine environmental protection conditions include: installing erosion/sedimentation controls before construction starts and maintaining them during construction; flagging the limits of physical disturbance at the site; obtaining town approval to change any plans before doing so; and hiring an environmental consultant to manage erosion and sedimentation control measures.

The church, which acquired the overall 42-acre site in 2004 for $3.1 million, would retain the 17 acres for its church, and would sell a 21-acre site and a four-acre site for the development of a rental apartment complex and a diner, respectively.

Apartment Complex & Diner

Also at the November 18 IWC session, the developer of the proposed 180-unit rental apartment complex and diner presented a range of plan modifications in response to criticism of those proposals by IWC members on October 28. The 180 apartments would be contained in six 30-unit buildings. The diner would have frontage at 13 Hawleyville Road.

Developer Anthony Lucera of Brookfield, doing business as Covered Bridge Newtown, LLC, proposes the apartments and the diner.

Wetlands ecologist Jodie Chase, representing Covered Bridge, told IWC members that in response to concerns about the presence of invasive plant species at the four-acre site for the 4,160-square-foot diner, three invasive plant species would be removed. Eliminating those plants would allow the native plant species there to flourish, she said.

Also, removing those species would physically improve the quality of wetlands located near the proposed diner, she said.

Engineer Dainius Virbickas of Artel Engineering Group of Brookfield, representing Covered Bridge, described to IWC members the range of design changes that Covered Bridge has made to the apartments and diner components of the mixed-use project.

“We took the comments to heart,” Mr Virbickas said of the developer’s response to IWC members’ environmental concerns about the project.

In response to an IWC suggestion that one of the six 30-unit buildings, which is located near a wetland, be eliminated from the development proposal, Mr Virbickas told IWC members that before the developer had submitted applications for the apartments/diner to the IWC and to the Planning and Zoning Commission (P&Z), the developer had wanted to construct seven apartment buildings, but then reduced the proposal to six buildings after conferring with town officials.

Consequently, the proposal remains at six buildings containing 180 dwellings, Mr Virbickas said.

The engineer said that the plans have been modified to reposition a proposed clubhouse/swimming pool component of the project farther away from a wetland than was earlier proposed.

Also, the modified plans would create a larger environmental buffer area between an apartment building and a wetland, he said.

Additionally, the developer now proposes positioning many “pervious pavers” as the surface for certain parking areas and sidewalks, he said. Such paving stones have holes in them, allowing stormwater to drain through the stones and percolate into the underlying soil.

Also, some previously proposed grading work at the site would be eliminated, Mr Virbickas said.

At the diner site, development would be located farther from wetlands than previously proposed, he said.

Several stormwater detention basins at the apartment complex would functionally serve as wetlands systems, he said.

The plan modifications would decrease by one-half acre the amount of impervious surfaces at the site, he said. Impervious surfaces shed stormwater which eventually drains into streams.

Public Comment

During the public comment section of the IWC hearing on the apartments/diner proposal, Corinne Cox of 31 Pond Brook Road said. “Thank you, You have made a lot of adjustments and improvements.”

Ms Cox also posed eight environmental questions about the project for consideration. The questions concerned stormwater volumes, impervious surfaces, stormwater control structures, stormwater flow control, chemicals to be used for snow/ice control, deer management, and sidewalks.

Ms Cox stressed she wants the water quality of Pond Brook protected.

Pond Brook traverses the development site, carrying water from Taunton Lake to the Lake Lillinonah section of the Housatonic River. The brook runs parallel to Pond Brook Road before entering Lake Lillinonah.

IWC members on November 18 closed the long-running public hearing on the apartments/diner proposal. The agency is scheduled to meet on December 9 when IWC members  are expected to discus Covered Bridge’s request for a wetlands/watercourses protection permit and then act on the application.

The P&Z was scheduled to meet on the night of November 19, after the deadline for this print edition of The Bee to consider the mixed-use development proposal.

The P&Z has closed its public hearing on the church proposal. The church is seeking a special permit from the P&Z.

The P&Z’s hearing on the apartments/diner proposal was scheduled to resume on November 19. Covered Bridge is seeking a special permit for the apartments and the diner.

Under the terms of the Incentive Housing-10 (IH-10) zoning regulations, 36 of the 180 rental apartments would be designated as affordable housing for low- and moderate-income individuals and families.

The high density of the development would be made possible by the presence of municipal sanitary sewers, which the town plans to install in the spring.