Walnut Tree Developers Withdraw Condo Construction Plan

By Andrew Gorosko

Walnut Tree Developers, Inc, has withdrawn its proposal to change the location of four as-yet unbuilt condominium units at the Walnut Tree Village construction site on Walnut Tree Hill Road in Sandy Hook, Community Development Director Elizabeth Stocker said this week.

That withdrawal followed the Planning and Zoning Commission’s (P&Z) recent chilly reception to the developer’s condo relocation proposal, which would have situated the four units at the base of a to-be-created 40-foot-tall cliff.

The developer is expected to return to the P&Z with a modified construction proposal in seeking to build the four units, Ms Stocker said.

At a session earlier this month, P&Z members had voiced concern about the now-withdrawn relocation proposal, focusing on the developers’ plan to place the four units adjacent to a proposed 40-foot-tall sheer rock cliff, which would have needed to be cut to create a place to build the units. Extensive blasting would have been needed to create that cliff.

Starting in 1995, the developers built 80 condo units for people over 55 on a relatively level 18-acre site at 26 Walnut Tree Hill Road. The developer is now in the midst of constructing a 110-unit expansion of the complex on 35 steep adjacent acres to the south, at 14 Walnut Tree Hill Road.

A looming rock cliff, which the developer had created in constructing the 80-unit complex, later posed falling rock hazards for residents living at the northern edge of the complex.

Before the P&Z agreed to approve the 110-unit condo expansion project, it had required the developer to alleviate the falling rock hazards posed by the cliff.

Also, the P&Z had rejected an initial 133-unit version of the condo complex expansion, telling the developer that the proposal involved recontouring of the property that was too radical for the landscape.

The developer later returned to P&Z with a scaled-down version of the expansion project, which involved less earthmoving than the previous proposal. P&Z approved that 110-unit project in August 2000.

As part of the approval, the developer was granted permission to build a seven-unit condominium building near the top of a ridge on the site. Nearby property owners, however, filed three lawsuits seeking to block the expansion

To settle one of the suits, the developer agreed not to build four of those seven ridge-top units.

As result of that legal settlement, the developers then sought P&Z approval to shift the remaining four units about 325 feet to the south, requiring that a 40-foot-tall cliff be cut for construction work.

The developers’ calculations indicate that if the four units were constructed at the ridge-top location, which was originally approved by the P&Z, it would have required the removal of 450 cubic yards of earth material to prepare the site.

Repositioning the four units about 325 feet to the south, however, would have required the removal of about 11,970 cubic yards of earth material, or more than 25 times the amount required for construction of the four units near the ridge-top, according to the developer.

Walnut Tree Village was the town’s first condominium complex. Construction of the complex has involved many controversies since its planning stages in 1994.