Hunter Ridge Subdivision

Appeal Draws Intervenor

 By Andrew Gorosko

A Taunton Lake Road resident has intervened in the court appeal in which a developer challenges the Planning and Zoning Commission’s (P&Z) October 2005 rejection of the developer’s 14-lot residential subdivision, known as Hunter Ridge, proposed for a sloped 30-acre site lying between Mt Pleasant Road and Taunton Lake.

Spencer Taylor of 15 Taunton Lake Road has become an intervenor in Hunter Ridge, LLC, vs Newtown Planning and Zoning Commission, which is pending in Danbury Superior Court. Mr Taylor, who owns a home next to the Newtown Fish & Game Club’s boat launch, challenges the subdivision proposal on environmental grounds.

The Hunter Ridge development site has 454 feet of frontage on Taunton Lake, a more than 100-acre, spring-fed lake that is ringed by privately owned properties.

Last October, Hunter Ridge, LLC, filed the court appeal in seeking to have a judge overturn the P&Z’s rejection of the home-building application.

Developers David and Carol French of 149 Boggs Hill Road, doing business as Hunter Ridge, LLC, propose the project for a site on the south side of Mt Pleasant Road, just west of the Taunton Lake Drive neighborhood. Two proposed building lots would have shore frontage on Taunton Lake. The development would be served by a new 1,400-foot-long dead-end road known as Dakota Drive.

P&Z members had rejected the Hunter Ridge application in a 4-to-0 vote, following lengthy consideration of the open space aspects of the development proposal.

Conflict over the development application has focused on the town’s desire for municipally owned open space land on the site to provide new direct public access to Taunton Lake. Hunter Ridge, LLC, contends that there is no legal requirement for it to give the town any open space anywhere on the site.

In seeking to strike a compromise before the P&Z had rejected the project, the developer had offered to give the town a $172,000 “fee in lieu of open space.” The town uses such funds to acquire open space elsewhere.

Typically, subdividers provide at least 15 percent of the acreage at a site as public open space. Alternately, developers sometimes donate cash 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.

Since the court appeal was filed, representatives of the P&Z and the developer have met in seeking to settle the case.

The P&Z and developer recently reached a verbal agreement under which the developer would increase the fee in lieu of open space as a way to settle the lawsuit.

That fee would be “several hundred thousand dollars,” according to attorney Robert Hall, who represents the developer. Mr Hall was not specific about the sum. Such a fee is typically paid to the town in installments, as each lot in a subdivision is sold by the developer.

Mr Hall said the tentative settlement of the case between his client and the P&Z has now been neutralized by Mr Taylor’s entering the case as an intervenor.

Attorney Robert Fuller represents the P&Z in the court case.

Legal Papers

In legal papers filed June 30 in Danbury Superior Court, lawyers on behalf of Mr Taylor state that his intervention stems from the proposed subdivision’s adverse environmental effects on the area.

Mr Taylor is represented by attorneys Joseph Hammer and Cindy Karlson of Hartford.

Through the legal action, Mr Taylor seeks to “protect the natural resources of the state 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 road, the installation of septic systems, the construction of paved driveways, soil compaction, construction 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.

To substantiate his claims, Mr Taylor has hired natural resource specialist Michael Klemens of Ridgefield, who would serve as his environmental consultant in the legal intervention.

In the legal papers, Mr Taylor states that the Hunter Ridge project cannot be approved in its current form. “Feasible and prudent alternatives” to the development plan should be reviewed, he adds.

Mr Taylor’s intervention in the case will delay any possible formal settlement of the court appeal between the developer and the P&Z. “I think it’s outrageous,” Mr Hall said.