The Inland Wetlands Commission (IWC) continued the public hearing for Application #20‐27 by Negreiro & Sons Construction LLC over Zoom on December 9.

The application pertains to a property located at 203 and 211 Berkshire Road (Route 34) and request to construct 15 single-family homes and a 1,550-foot road. The subdivision is titled Holly Estates on documents submitted to the Land Use Agency.

According to the Environmental Report provided by Steven Danzer, soil scientist, senior professional wetland scientist, and arborist, at the previous meeting on November 12, the 73.2-acre site is a mixture of forest, old fields, and currently farmed fields.

IWC Chair Sharon Salling said that site walks of the property have been conducted by herself and members Michael McCabe, Kendall Horch, Craig Ferris, and Suzanne Guidera. She assured at no time did they not attend in numbers sufficient to form a quorum.

“There’s no discussion on the application during these site walks. It really is a review of, if you will, the lay of the land and we look at maps and charts that might be available ahead of time and take those with us as well and usually refer to them as we go through the actual site,” Salling said.

Larry Edwards, civil engineer and land surveyor, J. Edwards & Associates, LLC, represented the applicant and briefly went over the three requested items that were worked on since last month’s IWC meeting.

He said that a few days after the first hearing he provided additional information for a bond estimate for the preparation of the mitigation area for the wetlands and “a detail of the crossing of that wetland.”

As for the third item, Edwards said, “The end of last week, Steve [Hnatuk, land use officer] asked that we could provide an alternative layout for the commission to have and consider.”

He then shared an image of an alternative location for the proposed main road at the westerly portion of the site, where wetlands are located.

Doing so, he said, “is probably a disturbance of three to four times what was proposed in what we originally prepared” and would need a secondary road to service the lower part in front of the wetlands.

Edwards added that he did not know of any other alternatives he could propose.

The commission did not make any comments on the new items provided in the public hearing.

Salling said she did not see anything that was not already addressed.

While there were more than half a dozen residents that participated at the November meeting, when the public was invited to comment on the presented material that night, no one spoke up.

The public hearing was closed and the IWC approved the Holly Estates subdivision plan unanimously.

For more information about upcoming Inland Wetlands Commission meetings, visit newtown-ct.gov/inland-wetlands-commission.