164 Mt Pleasant Road—

Planning & Zoning Approves Mixed-Use Commercial Building

By Andrew Gorosko

The Planning and Zoning Commission (P&Z) has approved a New York State developer’s proposal to construct a 28,380-square-foot mixed-use commercial building, which would hold retail space, offices, and a restaurant, at 164 Mt Pleasant Road (Route 6).

In a unanimous vote on July 2, P&Z members approved an application from Acme Realty of Scarsdale, N.Y., for the two-story project on the north side of Mt Pleasant Road, directly east of the driveway that leads to The Homesteads at Newtown assisted-living complex.

The applicant received a special permit for the project in a B-2 (Business) zone. The 3.2-acre site holds a vacant dilapidated single-family house, detached garage, and shed, all of which would be demolished to make way for new construction.

At a June 24 session, P&Z members had requested additional information on the commercial building proposal before they acted on the matter.

Those requests concerned connecting the building to the municipal sewer system, providing additional shade trees on the site, and the provision of a grease trap that would filter grease from the restaurant’s wastewater. Grease traps are used to prevent grease blockages from occurring within a sewer system.

Landscape architect Keith Beaver of Didona Associates of Danbury, representing the developer, told P&Z members that both the Economic Development Commission (EDC) and the Water and Sewer Authority (WSA) had provided the applicant with preliminary endorsements to extend a sewer line to the commercial project.

The applicant is expected to seek formal approvals from those agencies for sanitary sewer service.

The town installed sewer lines along Mt Pleasant Road in that area almost a decade ago to encourage economic development there. The WSA typically queries the EDC on whether a given project constitutes a form of “economic development” before the WSA acts on a sewering request.

Also, Mr Beaver explained that the project’s revised plans now call for more shade trees to be planted on the development site than previously planned.

Additionally, basic project plans now indicate a 1,500-gallon grease trap being installed near the building to filter restaurant wastewater, he said.

No members of the public spoke at the July 2 public hearing on the application.

In acting on the construction proposal, P&Z members said that their approval is contingent upon the applicant receiving formal approval for a sewer connection from the WSA.

Also, P&Z members agreed that the project meets the purposes and intent of the 2004 Town Plan of Conservation and Development.

The agency also decided that the application meets the requirements of a special permit and meets the specifications of B-2 zoning.

The planned building would hold about 14,180 square feet of office space, approximately 12,200 square feet of retail space, and about 2,000 square feet of restaurant space. The unspecified restaurant would have 50 seats. The ground level of the proposed building would contain retail space, as well as a restaurant. The upper level would hold office space. The structure would have parking lots that would hold up to 130 vehicles.

“Rain gardens” would be constructed on the site. Rain gardens are shallow depressions in the ground planted with vegetation that allow stormwater to drain downward through the soil to reach the underground water table.

About 920 cubic yards of earthen material would be removed from the site to prepare it for construction.

United Water would provide water for the commercial building from its public water supply, which has supply lines installed along Mt Pleasant Road.

A report on the traffic aspects of the development proposal prepared for the developer states that the project would have “an insignificant, if any, impact on the overall [traffic] operation of adjacent and nearby roadways.”

In February, the project received a wetlands protection approval from the Inland Wetlands Commission (IWC). A prime concern among IWC members was the quality of the stormwater that would be discharged from the site to a nearby wetland, with the goal of preventing any additional pollution from entering that wetland, which lies south of the site.