Police Commission Endorses

Edmond Road Industrial Complex

By Andrew Gorosko

Following a brief review, the Police Commission has endorsed the traffic-flow aspects of a proposal to create 93,750 square feet of industrial space off Edmond Road.

At a January 2 session, Police Commission members endorsed 5-K Enterprises, Inc’s, proposal to construct that industrial space within four buildings on a 27-acre site. The Police Commission serves as the local traffic authority, making recommendations to the Planning and Zoning Commission (P&Z) on the traffic aspects of development proposals.

Although access to the industrial site would be provided by a driveway extending from the west side of Edmond Road near a recently erected cellular telecommunications tower, the property has a street address of 71 Church Hill Road. The wet site lies on the west side of Edmond Road, south of the Rand-Whitney Container Newtown, LLC site.

Police Commission members endorsed the industrial development proposal January 2 with little discussion.

The P&Z is scheduled to review a site development plan for the 5-K construction proposal at a February 1 session. Potential uses of the complex would include manufacturing, warehousing, and wholesale businesses. The site would contain 116 vehicle parking spaces.

5-K’s proposal to industrially develop the wooded slope amid wetlands along Edmond Road cleared a major hurdle last June, when the Inland Wetland Commission’s (IWC) granted the project a wetlands permit.

5-K Enterprises, Inc, is a Connecticut corporation whose shareholders are Warren Kimball and his five children. 5-K has a purchase option to buy the Edmond Road site from current owners Harriet B. Edwards, Trustee, and Reid S. and Nancy C. Barker Family Limited Partnership.

In November 2005, the IWC, which was then known as the Conservation Commission, unanimously rejected 5-K’s request for a wetlands permit for a larger version of the industrial project. In its initial application, 5-K had sought to create almost 180,000 square feet of industrial space on the site.

The project went through many revisions before the IWC approved the 93,750-square-foot version of the complex.

IWC members placed numerous conditions on the wetlands permit for the property. The IWC placed 19 individual conditions on the site’s wetlands permit, which largely pertain to maintaining water quality on the site.

Wetlands-related work would include the construction of a driveway to enter the site from Edmond Road. That driveway entry point would be located just south of the cellular telecommunications tower. Two water-quality basins would be constructed on the site for stormwater detention and for water recharge purposes.

The project would include one 40,500-square-foot building, one 35,250-square-foot building, and two separate 9,000-square-foot buildings. The firm lists the project as a warehousing/industrial complex, intended for the use of tenant contractors, such as plumbers and electricians, who would store their equipment there and have offices in individual spaces at the complex.

In October 2005, the P&Z approved 5-K’s requested change of zone from Industrial M-2 to Industrial M-5 for the 27-acre site. That zone change expanded the potential number of uses for the property, adding retail sales a permitted land use. Before that zone change, the site had had an M-2 zoning designation since 1958, when local zoning took effect.

The site has been the subject of several past development proposals, none of which had ever materialized.

P&Z endorsed the zone change to encourage economic development that is consistent with a long-term plan for the realignment of Edmond Road and Commerce Road in a four-way intersection with Church Hill Road. That road realignment is intended to improve hazardous traffic conditions in the vicinity of the existing Edmond Road/Church Hill Road intersection.