Subdivision Application Withdrawn; Resubmission Expected

By Andrew Gorosko

The developer of a five-lot residential subdivision, proposed for land near the intersection of Boggs Hill Road and Head of Meadow Road, has withdrawn his development application from Planning and Zoning Commission (P&Z) consideration, but is expected to resubmit a revised version of the project for P&Z review.

Applicant Donald Ferris has proposed creating five home building lots on 21 acres at the envisioned Head of Meadow Estates. The site is on the west side of Boggs Hill Road, lying south of the intersection of Boggs Hill Road and Head of Meadow Road.

The applicant is seeking permission to create four building lots on Boggs Hill Road, one of which would be a rear lot, plus one building lot on Head of Meadow Road.

P&Z members had been scheduled to discuss and possibly act on the development proposal at a meeting on the night of April 17. But late that afternoon, the applicant withdrew the development project from P&Z review.

When the P&Z held a public hearing on the project on March 20, the developer had not yet received a wetlands permit for the project from the Conservation Commission, which serves as the town’s wetlands agency. The Conservation Commission granted that wetlands approval on March 26, almost a week after the P&Z had closed its public hearing on the proposal.

At the March 20 P&Z public hearing, the applicant drew criticism from some P&Z members who asked why applications for the project simultaneously had been submitted to the Conservation Commission and to the P&Z, instead of the typical process of submitting an application to the Conservation Commission, receiving a wetlands approval for the development from that agency, and then submitting the project to the P&Z for review with a wetlands approval in hand.

Such simultaneous applications complicate the P&Z’s review of development proposals because, at the P&Z’s public hearing stage of an application, P&Z members do not know the terms of a potential wetlands approval for the project. Approximately five acres of the site are wetlands.

A subdivision proposal must receive a wetlands approval before it can receive a P&Z approval.

Also, some P&Z members had questioned why the developer proposed providing the town with a fee in lieu of open space, instead of providing actual open space on the site for passive recreation. Town land use rules allow such fees in lieu of open space to be paid by a developer to the town in certain cases. The town places such money in a municipal open space acquisition fund.

In subdivision applications, developers typically donate at least ten percent of a parcel’s land area to the town as open space for passive recreation, such as hiking and nature study.

Also, at the March 20 hearing, the Head of Meadow Estates proposal drew concerns from some nearby residents, who said they fear the project would alter the neighborhood’s rural character for the worse.

One Boggs Hill Road resident had asked whether a subdivision’s effect on a neighborhood’s “character” is a matter that P&Z members consider when reviewing such applications.

The resident learned that factors such as “neighborhood character” are considered only when the P&Z reviews applications for “special exceptions” to the zoning regulations, not subdivision applications.

The P&Z’s consideration of “neighborhood character” recently played a prime role in its rejection of the Cambodian Buddhist Society of Connecticut, Inc’s, request for a special exception to build a 7,600-square-foot Buddhist temple/meeting hall at 145 Boggs Hill Road, which is about 1½ miles south of the Head of Meadow Estates site. The Buddhist society has appealed that rejection in Danbury Superior Court.