P&Z Rejects 10-Lot Quail Hollow Residential Subdivision

By Andrew Gorosko

Planning and Zoning Commission (P&Z) members have rejected the development application for Quail Hollow, a proposed residential subdivision of ten single-family houses in Sandy Hook, which would be constructed at the site of a former sand-and-gravel mine and junkyard.

The subdivision is proposed by developer/builder George Trudell, doing business as GLT Residential, LLC. Mr Trudell has a contract to purchase the site, which has a street address of 29 Berkshire Road (Route 34). Road access to the property would be provided from Philo Curtis Road, in the vicinity of the Exit 11 interchange of Interstate 84.

P&Z members turned down the application on January 20. Voting in opposition were Chairman William O’Neil, Lilla Dean, Robert Poulin, Jane Brymer, and Robert Mulholland.

Access to the site would be provided by a 925-foot-long dead-end street known as Quail Hollow Lane, which would extend into the property from the west side of Philo Curtis Road. The 29-acre site lies across Philo Curtis Road from Elana Lane.

Because the site is a depleted sand-and-gravel mine, the property has very steep slopes. Extensive regrading would be needed to make the site usable for home construction.

Before the vote, Mr O’Neil said the P&Z had consulted its attorney, Robert Fuller, on legal aspects of the home-building proposal. In response, the lawyer wrote two letters to the panel, explaining legal issues raised by the application.

The P&Z provided a detailed rationale for its rejection of Mr Trudell’s application.

P&Z members decided that the applicant did not provide the P&Z with mapping and information describing areas on the site that have slopes with greater than 25-percent grades, as is required in subdivision applications.

Also, the application does not depict existing natural slopes with greater than 25-percent grades, which slopes must be deducted from lot-area calculations.

Also, P&Z members do not agree with the applicant’s claim that site restoration does not fall under their review powers.

P&Z members decided that the site cannot be legally considered a pre-existing, nonconforming land use, as was claimed by the applicant, because surface mining was conducted there more than 50 years ago, and has not occurred on the site for years.

In rejecting Quail Hollow, the P&Z decided that the application violates the subdivision regulations, the zoning regulations, and the sand-and-gravel regulations.

Of the site’s potential development, Mr O’Neil noted that residents living near the site have expressed a desire to see the land developed.

“There’s support [for development] from the neighbors, and that’s unusual,” he said. The P&Z held a December public hearing on the application.

“It’s a ‘problem child’ for them now,” Mr O’Neil said. Residents living near the site have complained that the vacant former gravel mine has been the site of all-terrain-vehicle use and also of parties where alcohol is consumed, posing a nuisance to the neighborhood.

Mr ONeil said that a subdivision with fewer than ten lots may be practical on the site, considering the steepness of slopes that would be present in a ten-lot development.

Developer’s Response

On January 21, Mr Trudell said that he is reevaluating the development proposal in view of the P&Z’s rejection of the application. Engineers will be reviewing the matter, he added.

Mr Trudell noted that he had met with land use agency members before he submitted the development application and that they had not raised objections about the proposal.

The development site has a controversial past.

In September 1996, a team of developers proposed Newtown Village, a 96-house complex, including 24 “affordable” houses, for 32 acres there. That development proposal gained Conservation Commission approval for a wetlands-related construction work, but was rejected by the P&Z in November 1997 for a variety of reasons, including a risk of aquifer contamination posed by the complex’s presence. The Newtown Village proposal had drawn heavy opposition from nearby residents.

Besides concerns about Pootatuck Aquifer water quality, P&Z members had said that the 96-unit Newtown Village project would worsen existing traffic congestion problems on Route 34. The developer had proposed access to the site from Route 34. Also, P&Z members had objected to the developer’s plans to run a sand-and-gravel mining operation on the site before dwellings would be built there.

The developer appealed the P&Z’s 1997 rejection in court. In March 1999, a judge upheld the P&Z’s rejection of the high-density condominium complex, ruling that the protection of water quality in the Pootatuck Aquifer overrode the need for affordable housing. The developers had proposed building a small-scale sewer system on the site to dispose of wastewater.

The Quail Hollow project would require that topsoil to be brought to the site to create a suitable base for plantings, such as turf, shrubs, and trees in the now-sandy and largely sterile environment.

Extensive regrading would be done for the sake of safety and for aesthetic reasons.

Because the basin-shaped property does not hold land suitable as open space for passive recreation, the developer proposes donating a fee to the town in lieu of open space. That money would be used for future town open space acquisition elsewhere.

In a similar conversion of a former sand-and-gravel mine into a residential subdivision, in March 2002 the P&Z approved a 20-lot residential subdivision off Toddy Hill Road, in a mined-out former Newtown Sand & Gravel quarry. That project, which is now built, is known as Quarry Ridge Estates.