Hunter Ridge—

P&Z Poised To Reconsider 14-Lot Resubdivision Proposal

By Andrew Gorosko

The Planning and Zoning Commission (P&Z) is scheduled to again consider a controversial 14-lot residential resubdivision proposed for a sloped 30-acre site lying between Mt Pleasant Road and Taunton Lake.

The P&Z is slated to conduct a public hearing on the development proposal when it meets at 7:30 pm on August 20, at the town offices at 31 Peck’s Lane.

The development site is located at 41-47 Mt Pleasant Road. Alternately known as Rochambeau Woods or Hunter Ridge, the project is proposed by owner/developer Hunter Ridge, LLC, of 149 Boggs Hill Road, in which David and Carol French, of that address, hold an interest.

The development project has long been in the works, with Hunter Ridge, LLC’s, initial proposal to the P&Z submitted in April 2002. 

In early 2001, Ginsburg Development Corporation Connecticut, LLC, had proposed building 110 condominiums for people over age 55 at the Mt Pleasant Road site. But in May 2001, citing strong neighborhood opposition to its condo construction proposal, plus uncertainty about the availability of municipal sewer service for the project, Ginsburg dropped its proposal to build there. Ginsburg later built a 96-unit age-restricted condo complex 2.4 miles to the west on a 40-acre site at 178 Mt Pleasant Road, known as Liberty at Newtown.

The P&Z’s reconsideration of the Hunter Ridge resubdivision proposal follows Danbury Superior Court Judge Barbara J. Sheedy’s decision to remand a revised version of the project to the land use agency for its review and action.

In October 2005, P&Z members had rejected the Hunter Ridge application in a 4-to-0 vote, citing various concerns about the open space aspects of the project.

Conflict over the development application had focused on the town’s desire for municipally owned open space land on the site that would provide direct public access to Taunton Lake. Hunter Ridge, LLC, contended that there was no legal requirement for it to give the town any open space land anywhere on the site. The site has 454 feet of frontage on Taunton Lake, a more than 100-acre, spring-fed lake that is ringed by privately owned properties.

In seeking to strike a compromise, the developer then offered to give the town $172,000 as a “fee in lieu of open space.” The town uses such funds to acquire open space elsewhere.

P&Z members, however, were divided in opinion over whether the town should obtain public access to Taunton Lake via municipally owned open space at the site, or should instead seek more money than the $172,000 fee in lieu of open space that had been offered to the town by the developer. Some P&Z members maintained that it may not be environmentally wise to broaden the public’s access to Taunton Lake.

The town currently has limited public access to Taunton Lake via property off Taunton Lake Road, near the Newtown Fish & Game Club boat storage area.

Typically, subdividers provide at least 15 percent of the acreage at a given site as public open space. Alternately, developers sometimes provide money to the town equivalent to ten percent of the value of the undeveloped land at the site as a fee in lieu of open space.

Intervention

After the P&Z rejected Hunter Ridge in October 2005, the developer subsequently appealed that rejection in Danbury Superior Court. A Taunton Lake Road resident then intervened in the developer’s court appeal.

Spencer Taylor of 15 Taunton Lake Road became the intervenor. Mr Taylor, who owns a home next to the Newtown Fish & Game Club’s boat launch, challenged the resubdivision proposal on environmental grounds.

Through that legal action, Mr Taylor seeks to protect natural resources from “unreasonable pollution, impairment or destruction.”

Mr Taylor charges that the proposed subdivision would “involve extensive and invasive construction activities that reasonably likely will substantially impact and alter the property and the adjacent area.”

The project would include clearing mature lakeside forest, excavation, grading, the construction of a 1,400-foot-long paved subdivision road, the installation of individual septic systems, the construction of paved driveways, soil compaction, construction vehicle traffic, the installation of impervious surfaces, the discharge of stormwater into Taunton Lake, and the construction of 14 houses, according to the legal papers.

“The property itself contains many unique and valuable natural features, including numerous outstanding large trees, steep slopes and special habitats supporting a variety of plants and animals, including a state-listed endangered plant species,” the legal papers state.

In Danbury Superior Court earlier this year, Judge Sheedy pointed out that in response to Mr Taylor’s environmental concerns about the project, the developer proposed various design changes for the resubdivision.

The judge noted that the P&Z and the developer had reached a proposed settlement of the developer’s court appeal against the P&Z. Mr Taylor’s court intervention, however, provided new legal issues in the case which then needed to be resolved.

In her order to the P&Z, Judge Sheedy requires that the agency consider certain revisions to the 2005 resubdivision proposal which the developer made in 2007 with an eye toward environmental protection.

The judge has instructed the P&Z to gauge the environmental protection value of the 2007 version of the resubdivision proposal. Specific environmental issues referred to the P&Z for review include: the protection of a talus slope of rock fragments; the preservation of mature trees; the protection of wetlands from encroachment; and the protection of the present character, water quality, and public use, if any, of Taunton Lake and its surrounding land.

The judge’s instructions to the P&Z are intended to direct its focus on the environmental issues raised by Mr Taylor’s intervention.

P&Z action on the resubdivision proposal would be subject to court approval, according to Judge Sheedy.