Newtown vs Newtown?

EDC Seeks Court Appeal Of Tech Park Rejection

By Andrew Gorosko

Economic Development Commission (EDC) members this week unanimously voted to seek a court appeal of the Inland Wetlands Commission’s (IWC) recent rejection of Newtown Technology Park, an industrial condominium complex that has been proposed by the EDC for an environmentally sensitive, town-owned site off Commerce Road.

At a March 1 special session, all six EDC members present voted to recommend that the town file a court appeal in seeking to overturn the IWC’s February 23 rejection of the project. The EDC has nine members, three of whom did not attend the March 1 session.

Voting on the matter were EDC Acting Chairman Margaret Oliger, Stephen Zvon, Thomas Murtha, Walter Motyka, Gino Scarangella, and Don Sharpe.

The recommendation will be forwarded to the Board of Selectmen, which is expected to consider the matter at a March 7 session. If the selectmen endorse pursuing a court appeal, the matter would then be forwarded to the Legislative Council for review and action.

If a court appeal does occur, it would involve one town agency, the EDC, suing another town agency, the IWC, over a decision made on a development proposal. The town would cover both the plaintiffs’ and defendants’ legal expenses in the case. 

If the conceptual plans for the technology park project eventually are approved, some private firm or firms would develop the site after purchasing the real estate from the town. Such an industrial project would require that town land use agencies approve more detailed development plans for the site than those which have been submitted by the EDC to the IWC, so far.

The agenda for the March 9 IWC meeting will include an item under which IWC members could possibly reconsider their February 23 rejection of the technology park application, according to Rob Sibley, deputy director of planning and land use.

Based on advice from the town attorney, because a legal notice of the IWC’s February 23 decision would not have been published by March 9, the application could still be reconsidered by the IWC, Mr Sibley said March 3.

If one of the five IWC members who voted to reject the application on February 23 makes a motion to reconsider the application and that motion to reconsider is endorsed by the IWC, the agency would then formally reconsider its February 23 decision, Mr Sibley said.

Elizabeth Stocker, town director of economic and community development, told EDC members March 1 that EDC representatives who attended the February 23 IWC session had expected that the IWC would approve the technology park proposal.

“We thought that things were going to go well,” she said. But IWC members rejected the application in a 5-to-1 vote. IWC members generally decided that the proposed development would have significant adverse effects on wetlands and watercourses.

Last September, the IWC unanimously rejected an earlier version of the industrial park project, after which the EDC modified its proposal and submitted the revised application that was turned down on February 23.

The proposal rejected by the IWC involved an approximately 41.7-acre parcel 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 floor space.

The project has been in the planning stages since 2004. The town acquired land along Commerce Road in 1995 to provide road frontage for access to the site, which was given to the town by the state for economic development. The EDC is pursuing the project to broaden the local property tax base.

Robert Rau, a former EDC chairman who is serving as an adviser to the EDC on the technology park proposal, told EDC members that IWC members expressed concerns about the proposed Building #1 at the site, especially in terms of its proximity to wetlands.

Ms Stocker said IWC members had expressed their concerns about the project in terms of “significant impacts” that the project would have on the environment. She noted that the EDC had proposed a “mitigation plan” in response to the IWC’s environmental concerns.

Mr Sharpe said that the EDC’s expert environmental consultants had suitably rebutted the IWC’s expert environmental consultants’ concerns about the development project.

First Selectman

First Selectman Pat Llodra said March 2 she hopes that the EDC and the IWC have more discussion about the technology park project and reach “some reasonable compromise,” ending the prospect of a court appeal by the EDC against the IWC.

Mrs Llodra said she would recommend to the Board of Selectmen on March 7 that it support the EDC’s pursuit of a court appeal of the IWC’s technology park rejection, as a legal mechanism which would provide the selectmen, and potentially provide the Legislative Council, with sufficient time to discuss whether such an appeal should be filed in court. A court appeal would require an endorsement by the selectmen and by council members.

“I believe that a compromise will be found before any court appeal is necessary,” Mrs Llodra said.

On February 23, IWC members acknowledged that the latest proposal for the industrial park has better environmental protection features than previous versions of the project, but those improvements were insufficient to warrant an approval by a majority of the IWC members voting.

Conservation Commission members have urged restraint in the site’s development, noting its proximity to the environmentally sensitive Deep Brook, a trout stream that is a tributary of the Pootatuck River. A section of Deep Brook is a state-designated wild trout management area.

In their motion to reject the technology park project, IWC members stated that the project would involve a loss of 13,840 square feet of wetlands. The placement of an access road across a stream would alter the width and character of a floodplain in that area, they decided. Also, another proposed stream crossing at the site would unnecessarily fragment a wetland corridor, they found.

IWC members also decided that the project lacked adequate environmentally protective buffer areas, resulting in the prospect of damage to soil nutrient cycling and wildlife habitat values within wetlands.

“The close proximity of the developmental envelope to the wetland resources will also create a situation that will invite future intrusion into the wetland areas,” IWC members decided.