2011 Land Use Highlights:

Condominiums Approved, Railroad Waste Handling To Cease 

By Andrew Gorosko

While the year 2011 did not see as many individual development approvals granted by the town as in years past, two condominium complexes gained local land use permits, which when built would increase the local supply of condos by 204 dwellings.

Also, the long-running controversy over the Housatonic Railroad Company’s use of its Hawleyville rail terminal to receive solid waste from heavy trucks for shipment by railcars to out-of-state landfills appeared to be concluding, as the railroad informed state environmental regulators that it is shutting down its waste handling operations.

In October, the Planning and Zoning Commission (P&Z) and the Inland Wetlands Commission (IWC) both approved permits to allow construction of a 178-unit age-restricted condominium complex at a 50-acre site in Hawleyville.

The agencies granted permits to Toll CT III, Limited Partnership. The firm is a unit of Toll Brothers, Inc. The working name of the condo project is Woods at Newtown. Toll holds a purchase option to buy the site from the current owner.

The Toll project is planned for property with a street address of 12-16 Pocono Road. Access to the site would be provided from the north side of Mt Pleasant Road (Route 6) via an existing private street, known as Splendid Place that now serves Maplewood at Newtown, which is a 100-unit assisted-living rental complex 166 Mt Pleasant Road.

The Toll project represents the fourth time since 1998 that various firms have sought to develop the site with a large-scale, high-density multifamily housing project for people over age 55. All three previous projects, two of which gained approvals from the town, failed to materialize.

Also, after receiving a court order to do so, the P&Z in June approved construction of the controversial 26-unit Edona Commons townhouse-style condo complex for Sandy Hook Center. Dauti Construction, LLC, of Danbury is the developer.

Construction is now underway at the 4.5-acre site at 95 and 99 Church Hill Road. Eight of the condos will be designated as affordable housing.

Town agencies had rejected the construction project, but the developer eventually gained construction approvals through court appeals filed under the state’s Affordable Housing Land Use Appeals Act.

Town objections to the project focused on the development being an overly dense project for the rugged site.

Housing And FFH

In another housing matter, residents attending two P&Z public hearings last spring largely opposed a regulatory proposal from the P&Z that would allow the 188,000-square-foot Cochran House on Mile Hill Road South at Fairfield Hills to be converted for use as an apartment building.

The P&Z had conducted the public hearings in view of a firm’s interest in creating multifamily housing in Cochran House. A New York City developer had proposed a 160-unit apartment complex at Cochran House, but had never submitted an application for the project because the zoning regulations do not allow such a use there.

The P&Z has now withdrawn its proposal to allow multifamily housing as a permitted use at Cochran House.

In another housing matter, P&Z members are considering a town land use agency proposal to create a new set of multifamily housing regulations that would cover to a new zone known as the Conservation Multifamily District (CMD) zone.

CMD zoning would seek to conserve more than one-third of the land at a site, while also providing multifamily housing in the form of multiple buildings that would hold up to four dwellings each.

In November, P&Z members revised the land use rules to make it simpler and more straightforward for developers to apply for an Open Space Conservation Subdivision (OSCS), a form of single-family-house development that seeks to cluster the homes on a site in order to preserve relatively large areas of contiguous open space.

P&Z members modified the OSCS regulations after having had discussions with real estate, engineering, development, and construction people in seeking to learn how the rules could be modified to make OSCS projects a more appealing prospect for developers.

Although the P&Z approved the initial OSCS regulations in August 2004, no developer has ever pursued an application under the terms of those rules, prompting the panel to seek changes to make the regulations more appealing to applicants. The rules are intended to limit “suburban sprawl.”

The OSCS rules’ goal is preserve up to 50 percent of a site as undeveloped open space. The P&Z’s conventional subdivision rules require that at least 15 percent of a site be kept as open space.

Housatonic Railroad

In late December, the town learned that the Housatonic Railroad Company has withdrawn its spring 2009 request for a permit from the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) to continue its controversial solid waste handling operations at its Hawleyville rail terminal.

In a December 26 letter to DEEP, the railroad stated that in view of DEEP’s concerns that the railroad has not promptly corrected various waste handling violations there and has not created a system to prevent more waste handling problems from occurring, it has withdrawn its application to continue handling waste there as is required by the 2008 federal Clean Railroads Act.

The railroad’s substandard waste handling practices had drawn strong opposition a citizens group known as the Hawleyville Environmental Advocacy Team (HEAT) and from town officials concerning the potential for environmental harm posed by the railroad’s waste handling.

In the area of industrial development, the Economic Development Commission (EDC) learned late this year that both state and federal environmental regulators consider the EDC’s plans for the proposed Newtown Technology Park off Commerce Road to be deficient concerning wetlands/watercourses protection.

The site is located in an environmentally sensitive area near a stream where overwintering trout spawn.

Town officials plan to meet with the regulators to learn what is needed to gain approvals for the project.

Last February, the IWC initially rejected issuing a wetlands/watercourses protection permit for the project. The EDC then sought to have the town pursue a court appeal against the IWC over that permit rejection. But in March, the IWC reversed its previous rejection and approved a permit with many conditions listed due to environmental concerns.

The EDC’s development proposal involves an approximately 41.7-acre site off Commerce Road where much land would be left undeveloped. The proposed six-building complex would contain an aggregate of approximately 100,000 square feet of enclosed space.

Water Line Issue Decided

In November, state regulators gave final approval to the Aquarion Water Company’s proposal for supplying safe drinking water to the 230-home Greenridge residential development in Brookfield from a source within Brookfield, deciding that the Aquarion plan is a better alternative than having United Water extend its Newtown-based public water supply system to Greenridge.

The existing water supply in Greenridge has long been contaminated with naturally occurring radioactive minerals and thus is unsuitable for consumption due to health concerns.

In April 2010, the state regulators had approved plans for United extending its Newtown-based water supply to Greenridge.

But after construction started in May 2010, both Town of Newtown and Borough of Newtown officials objected, raising various issues about that project, and asking whether such a water system extension would potentially jeopardize Newtown’s future water supply needs.

The town and borough officials cautioned that a United Water extension to Greenridge would be environmentally unwise because it would amount to transferring water from one watershed into another watershed, potentially depleting the Pootatuck Aquifer and the adjacent Pootatuck River.

Also, during 2011, the P&Z continued work on updating the 2004 Town Plan of Conservation and Development.

The P&Z has expedited its town plan revision in seeking to complete the document by the end of 2012, which is two years sooner than required by the state.

The town plan is a decennial advisory document that provides the P&Z with general guidance in its decisionmaking. P&Z approvals or rejections of land use applications typically state whether a given application respectively adheres to or diverges from the tenets of the town plan when P&Z members state their rationale for a decision.

The current town plan addresses a broad range of issues facing the town, including: community character, conservation, natural resources, open space, housing, economic development, community facilities, and transportation. The document lists a multitude of planning goals for the town.