While no decision was made on the ultimate fate of a proposed 117 home cluster development at 20-60 Castle Hill Road, the Borough Zoning Commission heard from many members of the public at a public hearing on September 18.

The hearing was continued to the Borough Zoning’s next meeting at 7 pm Wednesday, October 16, in the auditorium of Newtown Middle School.

Developer George Trudell and a team of architects and engineers gave an overview of the proposed development for roughly the first 75 minutes of the hearing, detailing the homes that will be built in a cluster using a specific town regulation, 4.05.1, which allows residential open space developments. The homes will be clustered in one area of the development to maximize the open space surrounding it and would be a “multi-generational” development with homes between 1,800 and over 3,000 square feet, with styles named after nearby towns, such as the “Easton,” the “Redding,” the “Fairfield,” and the “Westport.”

There will be “large setbacks” around the homes from the surrounding roads.

Tom Beecher, lawyer for the developer, called the project “responsible” and said it would “preserve a large portion” of the property, with “62% open space,” along with the natural areas in the development itself, would mean “70% of the property untouched or undisturbed.”

Todd Richie, a landscape engineer, told the commission and gathered residents that the project would be built in three phases over four years. He also stated that an archaeological study had been done on the property, with no evidence of Revolutionary War-era artifacts found on the site. He did say there was an area where some prehistoric items were found, but “nothing that warrants further investigation.”

Richie said the project would add “additional screening” between the proposed homes and the portion of Reservoir Road that is known as Rochambeau Trail.

Traffic Engineer David Sullivan said that the development would create roughly 80 new trips in the morning and 110 in the evening, and would not “affect the level of service,” which was currently a C. This comment drew several scoffs from the audience in attendance.

At the start of public participation, the commission attempted to set a three minute limit for speakers so that all the approximately 70 residents could have a chance to speak, but that was met with an outcry from the audience, which included one member loudly uttering an expletive. The three minute limit was often complained about but far from strictly enforced as speakers frequently went over the limit.

The commission also suggested taking a 10 minute break following the developer’s presentation, but that idea was loudly rejected by the crowd in attendance.

Resident Ray Horvath said the “developers gave themselves away” with the names of the house designs.

“They are all the most expensive towns,” said Horvath. “Why not the Waterbury or the Danbury? This is an exclusive community.”

Horvath estimated that the traffic study was off and the morning and evening trips should be closer to 200 — as most of the 117 homes would have two cars. He also noted that an average of two children per household would be 234 children, “half the size of Hawley School.”

“Are you going to be building an addition to the school?” asked Horvath.

Grassroots group The Newtown Conservation Coalition (an entity separate from the town’s Conservation Commission) founder Dave Ackert said he didn’t “learn much new” from the developer’s presentation at the meeting other than he felt it looked like the developer was trying to “bring southern Fairfield County” to Newtown.

“I’m not sure Newtown will be too happy,” said Ackert.

Ackert referred to the Borough’s zoning regulation 4.05.01, which allowed for cluster home subdivisions, as well as the developer’s request to discontinue Reservoir Road, which was approved by the Board of Selectmen on a 2-1 vote earlier this year.

Ackert said that while the property was one of the ones identified as a possibility for a cluster home subdivision during the writing of the Borough’s zoning regulation 4.05.01, he said he was not sure the idea then was to “erase the road in between.”

He also said that the stormwater plan presented by the developer had been widely criticized and needed to be sent back to the Inland Wetlands Commission.

He called the developer’s presentation a performance of a “snake oil salesman.”

“We’re being sold a lot of things,” said Ackert. “The developer said he is going above and beyond in preserving open space, but the only part [of the plan] that doesn’t have houses are the steep slopes. He’s not avoiding buildable land, he’s using every buildable inch.”

Ackert said that each decision pertaining to the development had been decided by other bodies by a single vote — The Inland Wetlands Commission approved the wetland permit on a 4-3 vote, the Planning & Zoning Commission approved a referral on the discontinuation of Reservoir Road on a 3-2 vote, the Board of Selectmen approved the discontinuation on a 2-1 vote, and said that those decisions had been made with “incomplete information.”

He charged the developers with using “scare tactics” to get people to “believe the project was best for Newtown.”

Ackert asked that the plan be referred back to Inland Wetlands and said the Board of Selectmen approving the road discontinuation with conditions that have yet to go into effect “left a mess” for Borough Zoning “to figure out.”

Resident John Madzula said he had lived in the Borough his whole life and that he doesn’t sleep Sunday through Thursday due to the constant bustle of Amazon trucks, garbage trucks, and other vehicles.

He said the development “needs to be a good neighbor” and noted that the renderings of the proposed homes were described as fitting the historic character of the Borough, yet look “nothing like the historic homes.” He suggested knocking off at least 17 houses from the plan to reduce it to a more comfortable number and called cluster housing “one of the worst designs from the Midwest.”

“There has to be a little give and take,” said Madzula.

Madzula also expressed concern that an exit onto Castle Hill Road, while primarily meant for emergencies, would likely be regularly used by residents of the subdivision.

Resident Pat Hirsch called the developer’s intentions “pie crust promises” that are “easily made and easily broken.”

“Once this is approved, the train is on the tracks,” said Hirsch.

Hirsch said that adding 117 homes would add to the “intense overcrowding of the area” and that there needs to be an independent traffic assessment.

Resident Sherry Birmingham described the proposed subdivision like the “privatization of the Borough,” like a country club. She said that the wetlands permit would not have passed “if Inland Wetlands had been on the ball,” and that the open space would not be open to the public.

“It should be for all of us,” said Birmingham.

Resident Randy Kiely talked about how bad traffic in the area is, describing sometimes being unable to leave her driveway and that the “average person comes down Mt Pleasant Road at 62 miles per hour.”

However, with the 117 new homes, she sees new people coming to Newtown and “bringing their vibrancy,” and their children into our schools.

She called some of the other speakers “prejudiced people” and “bullies,” and said she would have liked a 10 minute break following the developer’s presentation, “but people shouted and we got no break.”

“I don’t know if I’m for or against this development, but I am against bullies,” said Kiely.

Resident Bob Gleason, a realtor, said that there are few new homes in the area and the development would help change that. He lauded one of Trudell’s previous developments, the apartments on Stony Hill Road, and called the proposed development at 20-60 Castle Hill Road a “hidden jewel” in the middle of the Borough. He said that the population over the last 10 years is down 2% and school attendance is down 18%.

“That’s not a growing town,” said Gleason. “It’s going in the wrong direction.”

Resident Holly Kocet said the proposed development does not conform to borough regulations. She said traffic in the borough is “already a mess that is often exacerbated by traffic getting backed up on Interstate 84.

“Our historic Main Street will be forever changed [if the subdivision is built],” said Kocet. “It will make living there undesirable and lower property values.”

Editor Jim Taylor can be reached at jim@thebee.com.