The firm known as 79 Church Hill Road LLC, which is proposing a controversial rental apartment complex at that address, near Exit 10 of Interstate 84, has filed a lawsuit against the Water & Sewer Authority (WSA) through which the firm is seeking court approval to either substantially or greatly expand the land area at which the firm could construct the complex.

The Trumbull-based developer also is seeking to have the court nullify certain conditions which the WSA has placed on the firm obtaining municipal sewage treatment capacity for the proposed rental apartments.

The project, known as Hunters Ridge, would include an “affordable housing” component, in which income-eligible tenants would be charged significantly lower rents than tenants occupying market-rate units.

The developer is seeking to nullify the WSA’s having strictly limited the size of the area where development could occur, and also nullify the WSA’s requirement that the developer gain approvals for the project from the Planning and Zoning Commission (P&Z) and the from Inland Wetlands Commission (IWC) before the WSA would provide municipal sanitary sewer service for the project.

Attorneys Christopher Smith and Timothy Hollister of Shipman & Goodwin LLP of Hartford endorsed the lawsuit on behalf of the developer. The lawsuit which is pending in Connecticut Superior Court in Danbury is dated August 9. The court return date for the town is September 18.

Asked to comment on the lawsuit, First Selectman Dan Rosenthal said August 14, “As it is a legal matter, it would not be appropriate for me to comment.” Similarly, Public Works Director Fred Hurley declined comment. The lawsuit has been referred to Town Attorney David Grogins for review.

Following discussion at a July session, at the developer's request, WSA members unanimously endorsed creating a “temporary hold,” or reservation, on nearly 21,000 gallons of daily municipal sewage treatment capacity for that firm’s proposed 141-unit Hunters Ridge rental apartment building on a 0.75-acre section of the 35-acre site at 79 Church Hill Road. The town maintains that only the 0.75-acre area, which is near Church Hill Road, lies within the central sewer district, and thus is the only area at that site that is available for sewer construction.

The roughly triangular 35-acre site at 79 Church Hill Road, which currently is owned by Carmine Renzulli of Norwalk, is bordered on the south by Church Hill Road, on the east by Walnut Tree Hill Road, on the north by residential properties on Evergreen Road, and on the west by the Exit 10 interchange. The developer has an option to buy the site from Mr Renzulli. The developer claims that holding that purchase option on the land gives it the legal standing to file the lawsuit.

The 141-unit version of Hunters Ridge is the latest of several versions of the project proposed by the developer. The initial version of the project, which was proposed to the Planning & Zoning Commission (P&Z) in December 2017, specified 224 rental apartments in six buildings, more than 55,000 square feet of commercial space in two other buildings, and a clubhouse on the 35 acres. That controversial proposal drew strong opposition from people living in the area. They charged that such growth would amount to overdevelopment.

The 224-unit apartment proposal was the subject of one public hearing each by the P&Z and the IWC. But neither agency took action on that version of the application.

Initially, it was believed that only a small fraction of the 35-acre site, or approximately 3.8 acres, was in the sewer district. Consequently, the developer had sought to have the WSA redraw the sewer district boundaries to expand the district and include all 35 acres within the district, so that the then-proposed 224-unit project could have sewer service. The WSA, however, opted against expanding the sewer district, informing the developer that the land proposed for inclusion in the district is in a designated “sewer avoidance area.”

The developer later proposed that it construct a 175-unit rental apartment complex in two buildings within the 3.8-acre area. The town, however, later informed the developer that a review of sewer district boundary lines indicated that only 0.75 acres of the 35-acre site lies in the sewer district.

That size reduction of the buildable area prompted the developer to then propose a single six-story building on 0.75 acres, which would contain 141 rental apartments. Most of the parking for that building would lie outside the sewer district. It was that 141-unit proposal that resulted in the WSA’s decision to reserve nearly 21,000 gallons of daily sewage treatment capacity for the complex.

Developmental Options

In the lawsuit, the developer lists four possible ways for the court to approve sewers for Hunters Ridge. The first option would approve the provision of the requested daily sewage capacity, without specifying the number of dwellings or limiting the location of those units on the site. A second option would approve that amount of sewage capacity without the requirement that the developer submit applications for the project to the P&Z and the IWC by mid-January 2019, and also receive approvals from both agencies by mid-September 2019.

A third option would allow the developer to build a multifamily complex with sewers within a 3.8-acre area at the 35-acre site. The fourth option would allow the developer to construct dwellings with sewer service across the 35-acre site.

In the lawsuit, the developer claims that the WSA acted improperly in handling the developer’s request for sewer service at 79 Church Hill Road. The WSA’s decision regarding the reservation of daily sewage treatment capacity for the Hunters Ridge project “exceeds the scope of the WSA’s statutory authority, is unreasonable, improper, illegal, arbitrary, and further constitutes an abuse of the discretion, responsibilities, and duties vested in the WSA” by state law, according to the lawsuit.

Among the WSA’s actions which it considers improper, the developer lists: reducing the size of the sewer service area at 79 Church Hill Road from 3.8 acres to 0.75 acres, with a corresponding reduction of the developable area there; requiring that the developer submit and obtain approvals for the project from the P&Z and IWC on a certain schedule; and prohibiting the sewer service area from including all of the 35-acre site, among other complaints.

In the latest version of the project, the development firm had proposed that it construct one six-story building on the site near Church Hill Road that would hold 141 rental apartments, of which 30 percent or the units, or 43 dwellings, would be designated as affordable housing units under the terms of the state’s Affordable Housing Appeals Act. Newtown, among other municipalities, is under a state mandate to increase its stock of affordable housing.

Because the state Department of Transportation would not permit driveways for the project which intersect with Church Hill Road, access to the site would be provided via the residential Walnut Tree Hill Road.