Following a design review and discussion at a September 25 session, Inland Wetlands Commission (IWC) members unanimously approved a modified wetlands/watercourses protection permit for a proposed gas station/convenience store at 13 Hawleyville Road (Route 25) in Hawleyville.

Voting in favor of granting that modified permit were IWC Chairman Sharon Salling, Kristen Hammar, Craig Ferris, Vanessa Villamil, Michael McCabe, Suzanne Guidera, and Kendall Horch.

The applicant for the commercial project, a firm known as 13 Hawleyville Road, LLC, is scheduled to present its development proposal to the Planning and Zoning Commission (P&Z) at a public hearing at 7:30 pm on Thursday, October 3, at Newtown Municipal Center, 3 Primrose Street. The developer is seeking a special zoning permit from the P&Z for a gas station/convenience store.

In 2015, the 3.7-acre vacant site had gained IWC and P&Z endorsements for the construction of a diner, a project which would have had more impervious surfaces and more parking spaces than the currently proposed use. But plans for the diner project later fell through, resulting in the gas station/convenience store now being proposed as an alternate use of the site.

Civil engineer Dainius Virbickas of Artel Engineering Group of Brookfield, representing applicant 13 Hawleyville Road, LLC, presented the wetlands/watercourses protection plans to IWC members.

The site is on the west side of Hawleyville Road, just south of eastbound Interstate 84’s Exit 9 off-ramp. The developer plans to physically alter 2.25 acres there. About 1.25 acres of the site lie in the “upland review area,” or upgradient area which lies within 100 feet of wetlands or watercourses.

Engineering plans for the project indicate that extensive earthen cutting and filling would be performed to contour the terrain. The site would hold a 5,293-square-foot building containing a gas station and convenience store. An adjacent freestanding canopy would shelter eight gas-pump islands, where there would be a total of 16 gasoline fueling positions. There would be a total of 46 parking spaces at the property, including 16 spaces at the 16 fueling positions.

Mr Virbickas told IWC members that the previously proposed diner would have been a more intensive use of the site, with more impervious surfaces, including 78 parking spaces.

The currently proposed gas station/convenience store would have driveways intersecting with Hawleyville Road and Covered Bridge Road.

As currently designed, the project would have no direct effect on the wetlands at the site, Mr Virbickas said. The stormwater control system would be oversized for the proposed uses, he said. Underground fuel storage tanks would have double-walled construction as a safety feature, he said.

Mr Virbickas assured IWC members that the facility would not have a car wash or an automotive repair bay. The complex would have access to a public water supply and municipal sanitary sewers.

In granting the modified permit, IWC members set eight conditions on that permit. They include that erosion and sedimentation controls be installed at the site before construction starts; the town wetlands agent must inspect and approve the marked limits of the site’s physical disturbance before work starts; and activity cannot occur outside the area which is protected by erosion and sedimentation controls, among several other conditions.

History

Under the terms of the P&Z's Incentive Housing-10 (IH-10) zoning regulations, the 3.7-acre site had been the commercial component of a largely residential project, which includes a planned 210-unit rental apartment complex in the form of Covered Bridge Apartments at the nearby 9 Covered Bridge Road.

One 30-unit building of that planned seven-building complex has been built and is occupied. When complete, 42 of the 210 units, or 20 percent of the apartments, will be “affordable housing.” The 42 affordable units will be rented out at lower prices to income-eligible tenants than the other 178 market-rate units. The IH-10 zoning regulations are designed to provide a commercial component as an “incentive” for a developer to provide affordable units at an adjacent housing complex.

Last March, Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA) members unanimously endorsed locating a facility which sells gasoline at 13 Hawleyville Road, granting the applicant a “certificate of location” for gasoline sales. That approval drew opposition from some neighborhood residents who raised issues about the public safety aspects of gasoline sales at the site, which is near the recently constructed Grace Family Church.

The 13 Hawleyville Road site is in the Hawleyville Center Design District (HCDD) zone. It is a specialized land use zone unique to Hawleyville Center that was created by the P&Z in 1999 to foster creation of a neighborhood business district that includes mixed-use activities, improvements, and the development typical of a village center. The P&Z created HCDD zoning to encourage development with high quality design, which should respect the environmental conditions and history of the area in seeking to achieve an integrated, cohesive New England village center.

Notably, in February, the ZBA issued a certificate of location to Nemco Limited Partnership to sell gasoline at a planned gas station/convenience store/cafe at a 0.7-acre site at 26 Hawleyville Road, about 2,000 feet north of 13 Hawleyville Road. The Nemco project also has gained P&Z site development plan approval.